5 week check-in

Now I'm more than a month out so I thought I'd check in. I know they say expect fluctuation up to 6 months but really I have nearly no impact. I jokingly refer to my bionic eyes but seriously this was a life changing surgery. I still have to throw out my contact lenses, that will be a great moment. I wish I had done this 5 years ago! I go in for my check up next week so we'll see what the doctor says.

Week 3

At this point the moments I can tell I don't have 100% clear sight is just frustrating. I haven't felt any impact of the surgery in a while now so I'm impatient to get back to full sight. I struggle to see small text at a distance. So things on a screen in work meetings or small text in movies often I can't see. So asking others or pretending I can see is inconvenient. It's annoying to be dealing with this but it is what it is. The warning was up to 6 months. Other than that everything is fine: driving, computer at a normal distance, reading/texting. Several times this week as I was going to bed I realized I had to take out my contacts ... but I do not. It's amazing to be able to see all the time. 

Week 2

The days blur together now. Vision is good enough that I rarely feel impacted. I do notice that eyes shift individually so I can tell that one is more clear. I can still function with it though. No issues for my computer based job. I work from home so no feedback on driving.

Day 9

I woke up with super dry eyes this morning. I was busy yesterday and was not faithful with my Systane hourly.  Shame on me. It almost felt like my contact was inside out as it was uncomfortable to blink. I rested in the dark with my eyes closed for another couple hours after waking up with drops frequently helped. I struggled a bit to see the words on screen at church today but they were rather far away. A reminder that vision isn't stable yet :)

Day 8

I went to the movies with my new eyes for the first time. I'd booked the tickets weeks ago before I knew I'd be getting PRK and I chose 3D. 😨  I was able to see but I wondered if it was the 3D that made things not exactly crisp or my vision. I was afraid I'd get a headache because if it. Thankfully I didn't. The drive home was at night. I generally don't like driving at night (as I don't drive much anyhow) but tonight I could tell I had double vision (crosswalk countdowns confirmed that). Was it from focusing too long on the movie & not resting my eyes at all today?

Day 7

I was able to shower without goggles on today :). It's the small victories I enjoy. I have experienced a bit of the vision going in & out that the doctor spoke of. At one point today I could tell that one eye was blurrier than the other. Not nearly as bad as losing one contact but it did remind me of that a bit. Down to one drop 3x daily.

Day 6

I'm basically at 100% again. I'm back to long hours on the PC all day at work 😞. I felt no impact. The drops help clarify but really I felt I could see all day long today. The hourly reminder for Systane drops on my phone is key as the hour slips by so fast. I'd forget to do the drops otherwise. I drove for the first time in a week tonight. The stoplights glowed a bit, I suppose that could be a bit of a halo effect but didn't impact my driving. My daily life has basically resumed. Thankfully I don't have to drive much, I suspect daytime driving would be even easier.

Day 5

I had my five day appointment today and the protective lenses came out. I tested 20/30 in each eye and 20/20 together. That clarity isn't consistent though. I had to focus see the letters. Again I was on the computer much of the day. At times I found myself leaning in to read but overall it was okay. I found that putting in Systane drops always helps with clarity too. Without the lens it's been a bit like when my contacts are inside out or slightly torn. That slight irritation feeling when I blink. I think that's just the eye adjusting to blinking without the lens. Odd that it felt more smooth blinking with the lens then without but I suspect that'll change soon. I got to go off the NSAID drops today. I didn't even realize I was on drops to help with the pain, loving modern medicine in this. Has made the recovery so smooth!

Day 4

Good day. I spent the first half of the day focused on the computer screen, full on working. I had minimal strain to read. I rested half the day to help healing. After the blurriness I got last night there wasn't anything pressing worth the strain to my eyes.  I do not want to tempt how awesome this healing has been. Mildly blurry by end of the day.

Day 3

At this point I'm slightly confused why I have no blurriness or light sensitivity. I don't want to tempt fate but it just hasn't been anything close to what I read online in preparation for surgery. They said take a week off work but today I can read my computer just fine. I still kept my eyes closed whenever possible but definitely not as good at it today. I probably worked at 60% capacity today, I was planning to be totally out of pocket until Day 5! I went outside twice walking the dog. I wore sunglasses to be careful but had no issues. I can see clearly. Maybe I'm healing slowly and I'll get the blurriness tomorrow or Wednesday? It got a bit blurry tonight but I think it might be because I strained my eyes with too much computer time.

Day 2

I woke up today was super dry eyes at like 6 am. Every time I woke up overnight (I think only once) I put Systane drops in. I did two sets of drops first thing bc my eyes needed it. Back to sleep for 2 hours. My eyes were less dry the second wake up. Put some Systane in then off to make breakfast. No sensitivity to light yet. I put prescription drops in during breakfast, gotta keep that up. I also took my vitamins, doing all I can to jump start the healing here! Then back to the dark room. I had slight pain as I was falling asleep last night. It felt like right around the contact edge so I guessed that my epithelium was slipping under the contact. Took 200 mg of ibuprofen and it was better. Took an acetaminophen when I woke up middle of the night and another ibuprofen when I woke up at 6. Just in case. I wanted to get ahead of it. No pain when I woke up at 8 am. Yay!!! Boring day - no pain, eyes closed, rigorous with my drops. Took one ibuprofen heading to bed with slight throbbing but really that was preventative just in case.

Day 1

When I woke up I could see. This morning I created a den of darkness in my room by covering up my window with a sheet. I had no pain. No light sensitivity. I wore sunglasses and a hat just in case on my ride to the doctor's office but I was fine. The doctor said I was 20/40 in each eye, 20/30 together. It's amazing to SEE THE ROAD SIGNS! I was surprised I wasn't light sensitive as so many complained of that and yesterday I covered my eyes when I went out to brighter rooms (like the walk to the bathroom or kitchen for food). Thank you Mother Nature for giving Denver a rainy cloudy day today though. I'm sure that helped! :) The doctor suggested refrigerating my drops as the cool will help settle nerves as the pain settles in tomorrow. I'm ready for it. He suggested alternating ibuprofen and acetaminophen every 2 hours to help. So I got regular strength (325mg) Tylenol bc I'm super conservative and don't even want to risk anything close to overdosing myself. I plan 400 mg of ibuprofen then 325 mg of acetaminophen every 2 hours. I'm being religious on both prescription drops and Systane drops. I haven't felt I needed Systane but I'm still doing it hourly as the doctors said I should. I felt fine but stayed in my room in the dark eyes closed most of the day. I was able to text people (without increasing don't size!) but tried to keep screen time to a minimum. All in all the day was WAY better than expected. Glad I was ready for a down weekend to just heal. The doctor said keeping eyes closed helps healing (to keep blinking down) so that's what I'm doing. Busting through podcasts!

Day 0 -- Surgery Day!

Heading over to the surgery was buzzing iwth excitement and a healthy degree of fear. I could take the easy way out and do LASIK so I was nervous doing PRK. It seems people agree it's long term better but I had read so many scary things about it. So grateful to have an awesome team at TLC. The doctor was so nice, we bonded on being from the same zone of New York State. So after the pre-check items, they put me in a zen room for a few minutes to wait for my turn in the surgery room and to take my Valium. I've never taken Valium so I didn't know what to expect, the staff in the surgery room were super welcoming, I was still a bit jittery with nerves. As I laid down on the table I started to wonder if the Valium was actually doing anything for me. I ended up being aware the whole time so I just had to be brave. Squeezing the hell out of the soft stars they gave me. The doctor gave me the play by play and instructions to stare at the green light. it was helpful to know what was happening since I could see what they were doing (man did I wish I could just close my eyes and go to a happy place ... but that wouldn't work 😝). I got a countdown of 30 seconds on the drops for my epithelium then I could see him removing that which was freaky. 9 seconds laser. The cold rinse was fine, no brain freeze for me. Repeat on the second eye with 10 seconds on the laser this time. At times it was hard to focus on the green light, I kept getting distracted with all that was happening/trying not to freak out. The doctor held my face which also was calming to know he was right there. I can't say it enough, my team was AWESOME! I could see immediately. I started to bawl partially in happiness, partially from the emotional release. I was pretending to be brave but it was scary. Then as I drove home my eyes struggled to stay awake more & more. I thought that meant I'd fall right asleep. NOPE. I took the second Valium when I got home. Nothing. 30 min later nothing so I took the third. The numbing drops were wearing off and I was in a ton of pain. Couldn't take any sleeping pills bc I was on Valium so I just laid in the dark suffering. {Learned afterwards, DO NOT mix Valium and sleeping pills, apparently you can die from that mixture -- yikes!} Even Friends (one of the greatest TV shows of all time, full stop) wasn't funny -- I was so consumed by the eye pain. They had warned me, you don't want to me be awake when the drops wear off. Truth. My eyes watered a ton and I had to be careful not to touch them when blotting that up.  After 2.5 hours of the pain I called the emergency hotline about taking ibuprofen. Got the ok and my life was changed. Within 30 min I was asleep. Woke up 3 hours later. Glorious! I did have sensitivity to light. The light coming through my blinds was a bit much, forget about when I walked to the bathroom/kitchen. I literally covered my eyes to protect them (thankfully I did not walk into walls but it was a risk I was willing to take). I put in drops before taking ibuprofen and then did again before I went to sleep again. I was much more comfortable so rested in the dark for a bit and naturally fell asleep again. Day 0 done!

Preparations

I wanted to be crazy prepared for this surgery. I had read about experiences where people could not do anything in the light. I live alone so going to grab something at the pharmacy was pretty much out -- I needed to get anything I could need prior to the surgery. I drove my team nuts with my questions and concerns on what I had read on the web. They were right, I didn't need to be nearly as nervous as I was

Vitamins: I read up that fish oil and vitamins were key. Seems like it's best to start taking those 2 weeks prior to surgery. I ended up moving my surgery up a week so I was on them for 4 days prior to surgery then continued to take them after the surgery to help with the healing. I took fish oils, vitamin C & a standard multi-vitamin. Of course there is no way to be sure if they helped but my recovery was fairly easy :)

Eye drops: My internet research said Systane Ultra and my eye doctor confirmed that. He said they are best as they form a gel layer on the eye versus others that can be blinked or run out of the eye doing minimal good. You must get the individually packaged vials for the first month. I learned that too late and have lots of bottles now too. My doctor told me on the day of surgery that I could use a vial for up to 24 hours. I had assumed one vial per hour, that significantly cut down on the vials I used. Bummer that I had bought a ton already and couldn't return. Oh well. I ended up using about 70 individual vials across the first month. I stashed them everywhere -- at work, in the car, on my nightstand, in my purse. Always had a vial ready to go!

Food: I was not sure if I'd be able to cook so I prepped lunch and dinner for the first five days prior to surgery. Super convenient to have, if I had someone around to help me out this wouldn't have been necessary. Since I was flying solo for much of my recovery I'm glad I did it. Further OCD led me to make salmon for one meal a day. Can't have enough omega 3s!

Pain killers: I was legitimately nervous about the pain. So many reviews said they had pain that was rather consistent. My eye doctor suggested alternating ibuprofen with acetaminophen if I did get pain. Sadly this was after I had bought Aleve so I ended up with a ton of pain meds. I think I took a total of less than 15 pain pills across the entire recovery. Oops! Also, I saw people recommended sleeping pills so I got those. I didn't use them. The only night that I wanted to use them was the first night and I was on Valium so I couldn't. Again, I find myself stuck with pills that will likely expire before I use them. 🙄