s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

I have had lasik surgery to fix my eyes. I had looked into getting it done actually
before we left the States, but with all the prep and packing and stuff, didn’t get
the ball rolling in time. For those of you who are curious, and haven’t gotten it
first-hand from another source, here’s how it went for me:

The Decision

My contacts lenses had gotten to the point where they really weren’t wearable
anymore — old and full of protein deposits and really uncomfortable. I’d taken to
wearing them just at work and maybe at parties, and wearing my glasses the rest of
the time. This was really only a crap stop-gap solution, since my glasses were
large enough that they tended to slide down my nose if my face got sweaty or oily,
and my scalp muscles would tense up to try and keep them on my face, giving me a
headache. Bleah. Plus the unfashionably large frames made me feel, well,
unfashionable.

Fortunately, the Council likes its employees to be able to see their computer
screens, and springs for an eye exam a year — once you’ve been working for Council
for at least six months, that is. I waited my six months, then scheduled an
appointment. New contact lenses to my prescription would be $300 for three
one-month pairs. Ouch ! If they didn’t try to correct my astigmatism all the way, they
could probably squeak me into a set that was “only” $150. Ugh. Between the cost of
the lenses and the cost of all the solutions and crap, I reckoned now just might be
a good time to look at laser surgery again.

The optometrist indicated that their patients had good things to say about three
surgeons in particular — one each in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch. It’s
resonably common knowledge that the more of these the surgeon has done, the fewer
complications there are, statistically. The grapevine indicated the guy in CHCH was
the front runner. The Wellington guy seemed to have been doing the procedure for
about as long, but had had a malpractice suit early on — a relatively innocuous
one, but it seemed bad luck. Plus, although the local place was quick to post me an
informative brochure, they were hard to get ahold of in the post-holiday period when
I was making the decision. The CHCH place, on the other hand, regularly sent people
around the country to do free initial evaluations, and the Wellington one was only a
week away. I got an appointment.

next up: The First Evaluation