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EXPERIENCE. // HAILEY OSTERHAUS
Seeing a difference: Writer Hailey Osterhaus (left) shown a few months before her surgery with her roommate, Jacquelyn Meiners, recently put her years of wearing glasses and contacts behind her went she underwent LASIK surgery to correct her vision.
All I could see was a bright white ring around a blinking red dot. Everything else around me had disappeared. My heart was pounding while I lay on my back with my hands tightly clasped together and my jaw clenched. All of my muscles went tense and before my vision faded to black, I felt a hand gently settling onto mine.
Contributed photo
That was when I knew that this was going to hurt.
What I didn't know was that Laser-Assisted Stromal In-situ Keratomileusis (LASIK) eye surgery was not only going to change the way I see, but the way I live my life as well.
I started having problems with my sight when I was about 7 years old. I'd watch PBS in the mornings and always end up seeing two Mr. Rodgers or two LeVar Burtons.
When my mom noticed I'd been covering one eye while watching the screen, she'd ask why, and I'd simply respond, "I see two TVs."
Shortly after, I found myself in the optometrist's chair awaiting his diagnosis of farsightedness and astigmatism. In other words, my vision sucked.
After I went through three pairs of glasses, I started poking soft lenses onto my eyes in the sixth grade. The contacts were wearable but the expense was outrageous. For every year's supply of contacts and doctor appointments, my parents would shell out about $600.
Considering the price of LASIK — about $3,600 — and the price of buying contacts for the next 30 years of my life — $18,000 — my parents were doing me a huge favor.
I moved fast before my time on my mom and dad's insurance ran out and booked an appointment. I found a place I was comfortable with, went to a free consultation and then set the date for my surgery: Sept. 4, 2009.
When I went under the laser, my eyes were numb and I had a pill of Valium in my system courtesy of the doctors. To check if I was sane enough for the procedure, a nurse asked me common questions.
The planning was simple and everything seemed easy and calm. But that was before I settled myself onto the operating table.
"What's your full name?"
"Hailey Osterhaus."
"How are you feeling?"
"And what are we doing for you today, Hailey?"
"Fine."
"Slicing my eyeballs open! I mean, correcting my vision."
Lying on my back, I clasped my hands together as the doctor lowered a circular tool onto my eye to hold it in place. While the suction ring was on my eye, the pressure was painful. I flinched and the nurse quickly grasped my hands. Meanwhile, my vision slowly faded to black.
This was when he sliced the top layer of my cornea, making a flap. Luckily, I didn't feel the slicing, but the pressure on my eyeball was almost unbearable.
Twenty seconds later, my sight came back as he lifted the suction ring off of my eye. Then I saw the red dot that was actually the point of the laser. When the doctor turned on the laser, there was a clapping noise that sounded similar to crackling fire. As the laser was reshaping my cornea, the smell of burning hair hit my nose. The doctors said that this wasn't the smell of my eye burning but actually a fume from the laser. But I couldn't get away from the thought that the smell was fumes from the laser ... burning my eyes.
When the doctor turned the laser off, the hinged layer of my cornea was flipped back onto the front of my eye. The doctor gently sponged it back in place and put drops of solution into my eye. The solution felt like a stream of cool water running over you when it's the middle of summer and 100 degrees outside.
When he was finished torturing me with his tools, I rose from the table and everything looked as if I were under water. When I went into the bathroom and stared into the mirror, my eyes stared back at me. They were dark pink and splotched with blood. It looked like I hadn't slept for months. The only thing I could do to stand the burning pain was shut my eyes and lubricate them when they were open.
After one eye was done, the doctor moved directly to my other eye, spending only 10 minutes on each of them.
But while I slept that first night, my eyes miraculously healed.
I woke up the next morning and saw clear numbers on my alarm clock. I reached for my glasses, but when I snapped out of my half-asleep stupor, I shot up in bed and gazed around my room in awe. I didn't have to look around for my glasses and I didn't have to decide if I wanted to wear contacts for the day either.
I looked into the mirror and saw that my eyes
were still pink but the image in the mirror was completely clear so I didn't care how I looked, just that I could see.
Nearly a month after the surgery, I still find myself reaching up to my face to take off my glasses before I go to bed. And I still dread putting in or taking out my contacts until I remember that I don't need them anymore. But what is really great about these realizations is that I am reminded how lucky I am to receive a surgery that gave me 20/20 vision.
I would recommend it to every person who wears contacts and glasses. Sure the surgery is painful, but 20 minutes of pain is nothing compared to the remaining years of life free from glasses and contacts. Jp