Before having the surgery, I was prepped by the doctor for what I might feel afterward. He indicated that I could feel no pain at all, to something akin to getting an eyelash in your eye, all the way to the extreme of having someone literally rub raw onions in your eye. I silently prayed that would not be me!
When I was done, I had my nifty sunglasses well in place and kept a tight grip on the hubby since my vision was not quite crystal clear. Go figure that it would be a sunny cloudless sky on the day I get Lasik and have to keep my eyes firmly shut. I kept them closed and had the hubby lead me to his car and then he kindly gave me a piggy back ride from his car to our home. Moments after entering, I changed into comfy clothes and popped 2 Ibuprofen (per the doctor’s reco).
The doctor told me that the ideal situation is to sleep for 5-6 hours so that my eyes would remain closed, but if I could not sleep, I was to keep my eyes closed and only open them every hour to put in artificial tears (and of course, go to the bathroom, eat, drink). Luckily for me, my coworker had let me borrow a John Grisham book on DVD so I parked myself in the bed, put my super groovy sped eye protector glasses on, and listened to disc after disc of The Confession.
Can I just tell you how extremely terribly difficult it is for me to spend hours upon hours doing absolutely nothing? Especially when I had worked like a mad woman 13 hours the day before? Yeah, boredom hit me hard!
But honestly that was the worst of it! While my eyes did feel itchy and a little irritated, I wouldn’t say it was painful. For the ladies out there, it’s as if you just put on your eye-makeup and got some eyeshadow or a mascara-ed eyelash in your eye. More annoying than anything else, right? I did have a dull pain-like sensation around my eyeball where the “evil contraption machine was applying pressure. Again, nothing I couldn’t handle.
After being confined to my bed for just about 5 hours, I gave up and decided I needed to get moving. I dropped a dose of anti-inflmatory meds and antibiotics in each eye. To do so, I had to make sure my hands were extremely clean while I carefully pulled my lid up to insert the drops. There are a heft handful of rules that I have to follow for the days and weeks to come:
- No rubbing my eyes for 10 days. After 10 days, I can lightly dab them (this is so the flap doesn’t move out of place)
- No submerging my head under water for 3 weeks (yes I realize I did this just in time for my February Kauai vacay)
- No sky diving for 3 months. (And dangit, I wanted to go this weekend
)
- No make-up for 7 days (GAH! I was upset when it was just eye makeup then I found out at my follow-up appointment it’s all makeup (minus chapstick))
-
I better get used to this no makeup thing...
- Protective eye cover must be worn to bed for 10 nights (just in case I like to poke myself in the eyeball while sleeping, ya know)
- No sweat in the eyes for 2 weeks (guess Bikram is out of the question)
- Anti-inflammatory meds and Antibiotic drops in both eyes every four hours for 5 days
- Artificial tears every 1-2 hours for 10 days (not while sleeping..obviously)
The evening of having my Lasik, I felt quite good. My wooziness was gone, my vision was improving steadily hour by hour, and the “pain” was extremely manageable. I was slightly sensitive to light and my eyes did feel quite dry, but I think that is because I wasn’t being generous with the artificial tears.
Friday morning when I woke up, I could see the alarm clock plain as day. I could see my bed head in the mirror 10 feet away. I could see the ridiculous amounts of cat hair we have on our comforter (I’m thinking this vision thing is going to make me an even cleaner neat freak!). I had no pain. Zero, zilch, nada, none.
After an easy 3 miles on the treadmill (not too sweaty for this girl), I got on with my day.
I had a follow-up appointment at 1215p on Friday where they checked to see where my vision was at and to address any questions/concerns. In just 24 hours, my right eye was slightly better than 20/20 and my left eye was better than 20/15. Holy moly!!! 
Neat!
And get this, my vision will continue to improve for another month or so! The only thing that is not quite up to par is my near sighted focus, which is completely normal. It’s not blurry, just takes a second or two.
I absolutely give Dr Hyver an A+ and would highly highly recommend Lasik to anyone that qualifies. The minimal pain I felt was so worth it and this is coming from a chronic fainter 
Please let me know if you have any questions!
What else is cool is that although I felt naked without any eye makeup (not even able to use an eyelash curler), a stranger came up to me in the grocery store (think The Bachelorette’s fiance’ doppelganger!) and said that I was beautiful. Awww. I don’t get compliments like that with makeup on. WIN!
Fri Eats:
- 8a—2 cups of home brewed maple nut coffee with 1 tbsp creamer
- 10a—smoothie made with 1 very ripe banana, ½ cup spinach, ¼ cup frozen blueberries, and blueberry whey (approx 250 cals)
- 12p—Nature’s Valley granola bar on the go
- 130p—Peach Chobani and ½ orange
- 4p—Peet’s large 4 pump vanilla non-fat latte
- 530p-9p—handful of wheat thins with TJs roasted red pepper eggplant spread; mixed green salad with slivered almonds and dried cranberries along with tortellini and TJs Garlic & Herb chicken sausage and marinara; 3 glasses of vino; 1 small square of Lindt chocolate (estimated calories during this time 1400 cals)
So I gotta say, I feel sort of guilty for eating all this food. Yes I was enjoying myself and having fun drinking vino with a friend, but I really wish I had planned for some lower cal, lighter snacks, knowing I’d get carried away. This for me was not a “Fat Kid” moment, but was simply me not being fully aware of all that I was eating. I’m trying not to beat myself up over it, especially since I plan on savoring my Mexi dinner tonight You live, you learn, right?
Fri Exercises:
- 3 easy miles on the treadmill + walking cooldown
- Ab work on balance ball: side lifts, extended back crunches
- 25 minute walk with Naava
Do you feel guilty when you over indulge? How do you cope?
