This is the third in a series of posts describing my personal experience of having laser eye surgery in February 2012. To start at the beginning, go back to the first post in the series.
Despite the goggles I had a great night’s sleep, for about 11 hours (probably down to the oral voltarol, although I chose not to take the eye drop painkillers as I wasn’t in pain before bed). When I woke up my eyes were a bit sticky, but the refresh drops sorted that out. I had a minor headache, like after having new glasses, but this is to be expected. I felt pretty ecstatic as I was expecting to be in serious pain and so far it was just mild discomfort, listening to 6 music on the sofa and drinking tea. They are having a Kraftwerk weekend so lots of bloopy bleep.
Here is a big close up of my crazy dilated eyes on day one. I am less drugged up than I look in this picture.
My vision is ghostly, blurry but I can read the kitchen clock from the doorway at about 2m (this is my new benchmark) – prior to the surgery I would have had to be about 3 inches away from the clock to read this without glasses. Using my iPhone is possible with the text at 40pt, but using the laptop is very difficult indeed, probably because the dilating drops make it impossible to focus at that distance – getting a lot of double vision.
As I’m feeling fine, I’m up for a visit by some friends Pino and Peter and their gorgeous springer spaniel Daisy, and naturally to celebrate there is some more gin and some home-made pastries. It began snowing outside but I couldn’t really see it until it started to settle. That evening at about 11pm, after half-hourly drops all day, my eyelids became a bit swollen and my eyes started to feel sore and large in my head. I had the painkiller eyedrops for the first time along with the rest, and went to bed.
Hi Simon,
Thanks for writing this! I’m going for my consulation in Moorfields in a few days. Looking to get Lasek done too so am looking forward to reading about your experiences
🙂