My experience with laser eye surgery – report from Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Hello everyone
After the operation I slept like a rock for eleven hours, which did not only do my eyes good. My feelings are very ambivalent. Because of my high number of dioptres, the procedure was more invasive than with milder short-sightedness. That means laser exposure of ten seconds instead of five, as in the case of Manu’s enthusiastic friend Natascha. It did not hurt. And I was well prepared, that was not the issue. What was perhaps distressing was having to see everything, since I could hardly close my eyes. I felt the pressure of the suctioned eyeball and the eyelid being held artificially open. At times you lose your vision, then it returns again, like an aeroplane flying through clouds, then a colourful ring trip, as I imagine it would be when taking LSD. The laser burns a cut into the cornea, which is then lifted with a small blade, after which the laser ablates the underlying corneal layer so that the incoming light is later focused there and produces the desired sharp image on the retina instead of the blurred one I had known throughout my life. After just under fifteen minutes everything is over, the patient stands up, can open her eyes and sees everything clearly. She is then instructed to keep them closed for another four hours and to recover at the hotel. Which she did, because she felt like a newborn who wanted to know nothing yet of the world that had been opened up to her.
Next day: Good Friday. In the breakfast room, Silent Night and other Christmas tunes. Apparently someone has noticed that it is a major Christian holy day and wants to please the predominantly Western guests with this. Just as we might include the entire Orient when playing “oriental sound”. The eyes need drops once an hour, but otherwise sightseeing is on the agenda. A visit to the Blue Mosque with crowds of other tourists, all shoes packed into plastic bags, but heads uncovered. Then a Bosphorus cruise, swaying in heavy seas between Europe and Asia, the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara. In cold and rain, the eyes anxiously protected with sunglasses, on to the Grand Bazaar. Otherwise, Istanbul is a historical goldmine and today an overly densely populated metropolis (three times Switzerland!), where even the façades no longer shine, which makes it pleasantly honest. Between the rows of buildings there is repeatedly a ruin that cannot be demolished without neighbouring houses also going up in the air. Many people work in the European part and live in the Asian part; the latter is therefore more residential, greener, better maintained. The two suspension bridges between the continents are constantly clogged because of commuter traffic, the roads as well, and the underground network has so far only been expanded in the liveliest district, Taksim. Istanbul is a melting pot of nations and even religious communities.
On Saturday at five in the morning, as every morning, the muezzin woke us; the return flight, in the dry cabin air, was not good for the eyes. Back home there was finally a feeling of unclouded joy at seeing familiar objects clearly without visual aids. It is also nice that the view is no longer limited by the edges of glasses. The highlight is in the morning, when I open my eyes and do not have to reach for my glasses first in order to see clearly. It is strange, though, how quickly everything becomes normal. Some say they now see much more than before. That is not the case for me, but I see about as well now without glasses as I did before with them. My short-sightedness was deliberately not fully corrected, because I am already of an advanced age and otherwise presbyopia would apparently begin sooner. However, I can see well into the distance without glasses. What is still inadequate at the moment is near vision. That means that when reading everything appears blurred, and I hope that I will not need reading glasses immediately. The doctor did reassure me about this and said that this is normal in the first few days.
What also strikes me as somewhat strange is that when I look in the mirror without glasses, I see my mother’s facial features in myself much more strongly. The glasses did not make this so apparent. I feel a sense of reluctance at this sight. But my eyes are beautiful, large and clear.
Kind regards, Petra Paul