52% intelligent. 9% modest. More monkey than bear.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

miles and miles and miles....

At some point on Monday morning, someone is going to slice open the cornea on one of my eyes and then clamp a piece of plastic onto the front of my iris using tiny little claws. Strangely enough, I'm quite excited about this.... rather than being some form of Clockwork Orange-esque torture scene, over the next couple of weeks I will be undergoing corrective surgery on my eyes. Thanks to some fairly incompetent administrative support, I'm actually a little in the dark about the specifics of what is going to happen, but what I do know is that this procedure is going to be carried out by one of the world's leading specialists in this area, and that once the operation is complete, I should be able to see better out of that eye than I have ever done before in my life, with or without glasses or contact lenses. Who wouldn't be excited by that?

There are risks. Of course there are risks. Please don't think that I haven't thought about the risks and that I'm doing this blindly (pun intended) on some kind of a whim. I started wondering about having something done to my eyes several years ago, when my increasing frustration and anxiety over my inability to feel comfortable with my glasses really began to get me down. It was at that low point that I began the process of investigation and consultation that has led me to where I am now. It was only fourteen months ago that I was told by this eminent professor of opthalmology what he would recommend for my eyes. I thought that once I knew what was possible, it would be a simple decision, but in fact it took me about four months from there to actually cross the Rubicon and to commit myself to actually going ahead and getting this done.

I've done an awful lot of thinking about this and I have certainly not made the decision to go ahead lightly. It's ultimately a leap of faith, for sure, but I think I've done everything that I can to make as considered a decision as possible and to maximise my chances of success. I could lose an eye and it's possible that I might damage my eyesight permanently as a result of going through with this, but I think it is far, far more likely that I will improve my best corrected vision substantially and will finally be free of glasses and contact lenses. Perhaps I will need to wear glasses for reading or for detail work one day, or perhaps even immediately, but I think I can live with that.

I am going to have eye number one operated on in a couple of days time, and all being well, eye number two will follow a week on from that. I'm mildly apprehensive about the procedure itself, largely because of what I don't know about what will happen on the day or how I will feel immediately afterwards.... but basically I'm really excited at the thought that this could change my life.

I'm looking forward to the simple joy of being able to wake up and to be able to see without needing to fumble around for my glasses.

That's a pretty exciting thought.

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6 Comments:

  • At 8:30 pm, Blogger swisslet said…

    Actually, I nearly lost my right eye the other day. I was getting out my car when I slipped and the door fell back onto my face. The edge of the window clanked into the impact resistant sunglasses that I was wearing and I sat back down with a bump. I looked at my sunglasses and the lense was ruined, with a huge scrape over the middle the lense, right across the centre of my eye. I was annoyed: these sunglasses weren't cheap and I was going to have to send them off to be reglazed. On reflection though, I realised that it was better that my sunglasses took the blow than my eyes.

    I know I'm taking a risk by having this procedure done, and I'm choosing to go ahead anyway, but the incident kind of brought it home how much luck plays a part in our lives anyway.

    ST

     
  • At 12:19 am, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Good luck with it, Swissty. I am sure it will all go well and you will wonder why you waited so long to get it done.

    I can't wait to hear what the world looks like afterwards.

     
  • At 2:49 am, Blogger Aravis said…

    Another of my blogging friends had this done a couple of months ago. She had the same apprehensions though, as a nurse, she probably had a better idea of the procedure than you currently do. Despite her nervousness, she did it. It wasn't at all bad afterward, and she's been very happy with it ever since.

    Good luck!

     
  • At 2:49 am, Blogger Cody Bones said…

    Good luck ST, I'm sure it will be great.

     
  • At 4:36 am, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I think it would freak me out to have one eye need a prescription and one eye not, while you were waiting for the next procedure. Good luck!

     
  • At 1:01 pm, Blogger Cat said…

    Oh my, you are so much braver than me - remember I bottled out of having a very similar procedure last year? I still wonder about it, to be honest, and may revisit it in some time. I got really hung up on the "was it cosmetic surgery?" thing, and also stupidly spent far too long reading up on the worst that could happen. You're right that it's a leap of faith, which I just wasn't prepared to make at that time - I hope it goes brilliantly, and who knows, you may inspire me to get some courage!

     

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