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

The First Evaluation

Contact lenses do change the shape of your eye a bit, especially toric lenses, which are what I needed (Look ! Past tense !) for my astigmatism. The Wellington lasik place had indicated that they wanted one to not wear contact lenses at all for three days prior to *their* free initial screening, so they could see one’s eyes once they’d had a couple days to think about being their normal shape again. The Christchurch place that I ended up actually scheduling the appointment with only said thay they’d ask me to take them out at the eval, so to bring a case with me, but I elected to just wear glasses for the weekend before the appointment anyway.

Since the actual eye clinic is of course in Christchurch, this free eval was held in a hotel suite on the Terrace, with a young surfer-looking optometrist named Stewart. Sounds like it could be dodgy, but it was all very professional, I assure you. Stewart has a habit of ending every other statement with a little affirmative “hmm”: “It’s been humid lately, but not as hot as in Auckland, hmm.” There was an eye chart on the wall, and on the table/desk were couple of machines that Stewart or whoever pulled the “away” duty that week evidently had to haul around to these evals on the plane. He had me read the eye chart as best as I could, which wasn’t fantastic, as I was wearing my glasses, which are at least 10 years old. I was expecting him to ask about my current and next-oldest prescription, to see whether my eyes were still changing (the optometrist I’d been to had been concerned about the astigmatism in my right eye), but he reckoned that if I could still read as much of the chart as I could with 10-year-old glasses, that I was fine.

After the chart came the machines. The first one just worked out roughly how bad my vision was — if you’re worse than -8 or so, the surgery gets tricky (I was between -5 and -6). The second one required staring through bright yellow concentric rings at a little red “flower” light. The machine used the reflection of the yellow rings bouncing off the front of the eye to map the contours of the cornea. Nearsightedness means the cornea is too steep. Astigmatism means the cornea is steeper on one axis than the other (I think mine were steeper on the vertical than the horizontal). If your slopes aren’t roughly symmetrical, then it gets tricky again. My right eye was a wee bit off, but not far enough to cause problems (Stewart assured me).

The last test was “corneal thickness”. This involved those anaesthetic drops that make your eyeballs feel like big rubber chew toys. The fact that I didn’t flinch in the slightest either when he put the drops in or when he poked each numb eyeball with the little stick-thing that does the measuring seemed to impress Stewart a bit. “You can tell you’re a contact lens-wearer, hmm.” They want your corneas to be at least 500 microns thick, so they’ve got enough to take off with the laser (and of course the worse your prescription is, the more they’ll need to take off, hmm). Mine were again borderline — 499 and 505.

Stewart then pulled out a little A4 flip-chart with eyeball diagrams that explained first how the eye worked, what nearsightedness and astigmatism meant, and how the lasik procedure would correct these conditions. He gave me some info about possible complications; I asked a couple of questions; he described what having the procedure felt like during and after.

Stewart then gave me a letter confirming that the initial eval had determined I was a suitable candidate for the surgery. I asked about scheduling, and he told me they could usually arrange appointments with two weeks notice. However, since I wore toric lenses, I’d need to be out of them for three weeks before having the procedure, to give my eyes the best chance to get back to their normal shape first. I was the last appointment of the day — Stewart had a plane to catch to Dunedin for more evals there the next day. I went straight back to work and made an appointment for three weeks away.

Next up: The Procedure