Eight Month Eye Report

I skipped out on my six-month follow-up report for the laser eye surgery I had last December. If you want to read the whine-fest for my recovery at the three-month point, click here.

The reason I didn’t post at the six-month point is because SNAFU and FUBAR were having their wicked way with me. Not only had my eyes not improved any at the six-month point, but my prescription had gotten a little worse. I’m only talking about the right eye, which was set for distance. My left eye, which was set for reading, is amazing. No problems at all.

So, at six months I learned that my vision was still on the down slide and that my astigmatism, which the surgery was supposed to address, had not gone away. My eye guy dutifully faxed his findings to the laser eye surgery clinic in another town, and I knew from talking to the clinic at the three-month point that I was to wait a few days, maybe a week if the surgeon was on holidays, to hear back.

So I waited. And I waited. And then I waited some more.

After three weeks, I thought surely he must have returned from holiday by now–that is, if he’d left in the first place. So I called. Nope, they hadn’t received a fax from my optometrist on June 16th. Phone call to Eye Guy. Yes, they’d sent it off and had the time stamp to prove it. Of course, it was close to the end of a work day.

Phone call back to the laser eye clinic. Oops. Guess they did send it to us. Wonder what happened to it? Can they please send it again?

I guess a mouse ate the faxed report. Whatever. On around July 7th it was sent again, and by the time I heard from the laser eye clinic that they wanted to see me do some scans, I was just about to leave for the RWA National Conference in Anaheim. So we scheduled my exam for August 15th, this week. Eight months practically exactly since I had the surgery.

The result? Good news! Well, the bad news first is that my eye is even worse than it was at six months. But the culprit isn’t just the distance. It’s my astigmatism. The distance and the astigmatism combined have been FUBARing all over the place. However, I don’t have severe dry eye. I just feel like I need drops all the time because my poor right eye is trying to focus on SOMETHING and is having a devil of a time.

The upshot of all this is that there IS, thank God, enough prescription, as they call it, that I qualify for an “enhancement.” Another word for this is a “touch-up.” WHEN to have the touch-up is the question. I don’t want to have the touch-up until we’re reasonably assured that my right eye vision is stable in its crapability. So I’m going back in six weeks, and we’ll see how crappy my vision is then.

In the meantime, I am “legal” for driving. But I only feel safe driving in bright sunlight. No twilight or night time or rainy driving for me. Snow would totally freak me out.

I will most likely, after the enhancement, still feel the need for driving glasses for certain situations (like long drives at night), but as long as I don’t feel the need for glasses every time I leave the house (or even watching TV lately), I’ll be happy. After all, life consists of more than staring at a computer screen, although both eyes can perform that feat remarkably well.

Cross your fingers that I get a green light in 6 weeks and that the resulting enhancement is a success. I’m not pleased to have to re-experience the recovery period but if I get a decent right eye out of the deal, I will be SUPER HAPPY. You can bet on it.