Friday 24 January 2014

The Eyes Have It

I've contemplated having laser eye surgery for quite some time - years rather than months, in fact. But, until now, I've never actually done anything about it. I've always been nervous of finding somewhere that I would feel comfortable having it done - the high street options haven't appealed to me for a number of reasons, but I figured that unless I had the sort of money that could take me to Harley Street, then I would have to bite the bullet and head to the high street. But then I did a little bit of extra Googling and came up with a clinic that operates within the Bristol Eye Hospital and, somehow, that made me feel happy; something about the security of being in a hospital environment and finding a clinic that wasn't interested in the hard sell. So I called and made an appointment; there was a fair bit of to-ing and fro-ing beforehand as the clinic wanted to gather as much information about me and my eyes as they could, particularly prescriptions from sight tests dating back at least two years. This involved me racking my brain to remember past opticians. Anyway, that was soon sorted and all was good. And then, today, hubby and I made the trip up to Bristol; hubby had to come too as I was told I wouldn't be able to drive home afterwards due to the drops they put in your eyes to dilate the pupils which cause blurred vision.

I was in the clinic for about three hours having my sight tested, and my eyes photographed, measured, poked, prodded, filled with yellow dye and dilating drops and talking to surgeon about which surgery would be best for me (LASIK or LASEK are the options; I won't go into the details in case you're squeamish...) The surgeon now needs to look through all of the test results to ensure I'm a suitable candidate and, if I am, decide which surgery I should have. I'll talk to him next week to find out if we are good to proceed. I'm tentatively booked in for surgery on 2nd April, if all goes to plan!

Once everything was done and I was ready to go home, I called hubby to come and pick me up and then decided to take a quick photo of my eyes to see what they looked like after all the goings on. Please try not to be too alarmed...



Isn't it scary! I'm not purposefully staring or anything in that shot, but the drops they put in my eyes made the pupils dilate and, boy, do I look like the sort of crazy woman you would not like to meet on a dark night (or at any other time, really)?!? 

I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that it's now several hours later and my eyes are back to normal.

4 comments:

  1. This is something I've thought about too.. and not dared yet. I'll be interested to hear how you get on..

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  2. You've obviously thougt about it long and hard and done your research too, although I'm sure you're nervous. if it's any help I had mine lasered about 10 years ago and it was the best thing I ever did - I didn't do much research (not much Internet then) and knew no one who'd had it done but off I went to London, via a high street shop. It was a little scary but the results were fantastic (maybe I was just lucky?) the experience is worthy of a blog post sometime in the future as there were some very funny moments!
    Good luck Justine & if I can advise in any way please get in touch x

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  3. Good luck, wish I could have it done, but I'm far-sighted and they don't do it on that kind of vision, so I'm stuck with contact lens.

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  4. I'd love to have this done, but like you I've been very cautious. I've worn glasses since I was five and I can only see a few inches without them. I can't imagine what it would be like to wake up and be able to see. Wonderful! I hope it goes very well, I'll be interested to hear about your experience.

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