I'm sitting in the hospital today waiting for my husband to get corrective eye surgery. I'm equipped with a whole cocktail of pain killers and eye drops to get him through the recovery period, as well as a pair of sunglasses that he'll have to wear at all times for the next month (I believe). But after today he will never have to wear glasses again. Isn't it crazy what people can do, what technology we've created? It used to be that people with bad vision had to just deal with it, but then someone thought, hey, what if we put lenses in front of our eyes, and glasses were born. But it didn't stop there. Someone else thought glasses got in the way and developed contacts--lenses that go directly on the eye and are nearly invisible. And then Lasik was developed to where a laser can correct vision and eliminate the need for either glasses or contacts. This is a surgery that can literally change the way a person sees the world, and the technology is only getting better.
On one hand I'm very jealous of my husband. After just a couple months of recovery, he will wake up to a clear picture of his surroundings. I only started wearing glasses a couple of years ago and still remember what that feels like. He, on the other hand, has been wearing glasses since he was a kid. I guess its only fair he gets to experience that again.
But I also find the whole thing terrifying. They are going to use a device much like an electric toothbrush to sand down a few layers of his eyeballs and the burn away some of the tissue with a laser, all while he is awake. Everything about that statement makes me cringe. I don't even like touching my eyeballs to put contacts in.
They say this is a very safe and easy surgery and I am sure that my fears are completely irrational. Its just that even a 0.0001% chance (I made that up, I don't know what the actual chances are) of my vision being worsened by surgery is enough to make me second guess the idea. I guess I'll see how this goes for Robert and that's how I'll decide if its something I ever want to do. After all, I think I wear my glasses quite well.
On a semi-unrelated final note, I'm sitting in a room full of army wives waiting on their husbands to get this surgery and I overheard a conversation that made me giggle. It went like this:
Her: So where do I meet you when you are done? Him: I'll just walk out here, its not like I'm getting open heart surgery. Her: I'm sure that you'll act like it though.
It looks like I'm not the only one dreading these next few days.