Okay, so I wanted to keep a pretty detailed account of the surgery I had the other day that I told you guys about - this is only the second surgery I've ever had, after having my wisdom teeth out a few years back, so it's sort of a big deal to me. 

As many of you probably know, I've had terrible eyesight since I was eight years old. My parents wondered why I was doing so badly at softball when I'd always been pretty good, and they realized it was because I couldn't actually see the ball. But my dad had really bad eyesight, so it wasn't much of a surprise. Anyway, so I got glasses when I was eight years old. When I was thirteen, I got contacts. 

Contacts are, in my opinon, better than glasses. Wearing glasses for long periods of time hurt my head, but eventually my eyesight got so bad that I couldn't see at all without contacts or glasses so I slept in my glasses for about ten years. A lot of people are shocked by that - "Isn't that uncomfortable?" - but I've always been something of an insominiac so I wake up a lot at night. I absolutely hated waking up and not being able to see, so I slept in my glasses. 

Well over the years my eyes got worse and worse and worse. So much so that I was considered legally blind without contacts or glasses. I could see colors and vague shapes, but I couldn't function in the world. I couldn't even walk from my bedroom to the bathroom. 

When my dad died, I inherited some money from his life insurance policy. My dad had bad eyes his whole life and ended up having surgery himself. I figured he of all people would want me to spend that money on getting my eyes fixed. 

The only problem was that America wouldn't fix my eyes. Or I suppose I should say couldn't. My vision was really bad, but on top of that my corneas were oddly shaped and incredibly thin. Doctors in America wouldn't operate. I was devastated, because I'd gotten my hopes up. 

Well then I came to Korea. In Korea, eye surgery is the thing to do. Everybody does it. Like, seriously, it's so common. Over half of the teachers in my school have done it. The surgery was developed in Korea, so they're more advanced here than in America. So one of my co-teachers that I'm really good friends with got her eyes fixed. She had really easy eyes to fix, but she suggested that I see if the hospital she went to could fix my eyes. I thought it was a long shot but that it couldn't hurt, so I went and got an examination - which, with the amazing health care in Korea, was totally free. 

Much to my surprise, the doctor said he could do it, no problem. He said that there was a small chance I wouldn't have 20/20 since my eyes were so bad, but more than likely I would and everything would be okay. It was a chance I was willing to take. I set up the surgery. 

I'm lucky because where I live is pretty much the center of everything, so I could easily walk to the hospital. On the day of the surgery, my fiance, Jacky, and I walked over there. My Korean friend, MiKyung, met us there. She translated all the documents for me and I signed the forms. Then they took me back into the operating room and Jacky and MiKyung settled down in the waiting room. 

I mentioned before that I've only ever had surgery once before, and that was having my wisdom teeth removed back when I was in college. They had put me under then, but they couldn't put me under for this. I was freaking out. 

So the nurse put the hospital gown and cap on me and led me back into the operating room. I laid down on the table and they wheeled me under the laser and I just lost it. I panicked. I started crying and I couldn't stop. 

The poor nurse didn't know what to do. She kept asking me if she should go get my friend. She didn't speak any English, but luckily I knew enough Korean to know what she meant. I told her yes. So she disappeared and I tried to get my breathing back under control. I didn't realize it would be quite so terrifying being under the laser. It wasn't so much the surgery I was afraid of, but more of the possibility of what would happen afterwards. It's not common, but there are complications with these surgeries sometimes that result in blindness. Part of me was thinking, what if I do this and end up blind? It was a terrifying thought. 

I suppose I should talk about the two different types of surgeries really fast. First of all, far and near-sightedness comes from the eyeball being too round or too flat. Near-sighted is too flat, which is what I am. With Lasik, with an i, the doctor makes an incision and peels back the top flap of the cornea. Then he lasers the eye to be the right shape and puts the flap back. It heals itself in about a day or so. With Lasek, with an e, the top layer of the cornea is obliterated and has to regrow, which is painful and takes several months. When your eyesight is too bad one way or the other, near or far-sighted, they have to laser too much to do Lasik. The flap won't lay down properly afterwards. So people like that, myself included, have to get Lasek. It's much more painful and the healing process is longer, but it's better in the run. So I was having Lasek. 

Anyway, so the nurse came back with MiKyung. Thank god. She also came back with four pills that she told me to take to calm myself down. Thank god for that too. 

So they put me back under the laser and it was much easier with MiKyung there - and with the pills I'd taken. They put some drops in my eyes to numb them so I wouldn't feel anything during the procedure. I really just wished they'd put me under so I didn't have to be awake for it. 

Once my eyes were good and numb, they taped down my left eye so I couldn't open it and they put some cloth over my face that only had a hole over my right eye. Then they took this little round clamp and put it in my eye to keep it open. This was by far the worst part. It didn't really hurt, but there was a pressure that almost hurt and it was incredibly uncomfortable. My eye just kept trying to close and it couldn't because it was being held open by this metal clamp. Super uncomfortable. 

So they lasered my right eye first. I really couldn't feel anything, but it was super strange because I could see it. There was a green light first, and then a red light. When the red light came on, I could hear it sizzling. I could also smell my cornea burning, which was super not cool. Then was the second worst part: the doctor took this little metal too and scraped off the top layer of my cornea. I couldn't feel it, of course, but I could see it. It was disgusting. After the top layer was gone, the red laser came back. This was where the doctor reshaped my eye. 

I had a really scary moment during this time. The doctor told me to look at the red light in the center of the laser, and of course I was trying. But the light in the middle seemed to move, and then I lost it. Everything was so red. The doctor stopped and told me to look at the red light in the center. But I couldn't see the red light in the center, so I told him. He made a few adjustments and asked again if I could see the red light. I still couldn't. This happened several times in a row. I started panicking. Looking back, obviously I wasn't blind because I could still see the red laser in my eye, but at the time I started panicking, thinking that I had blinded myself. Thank god MiKyung was there. She was talking to me and holding my hand, tapping her finger against my hand. That was really helpful. I focused on counting the taps. Eventually the doctor told me it wasn't a big deal and to just look in the center. 

After my right eye was finished, it was time to do my left eye. This one was easier since I'd already done it once, but I was so uncomfortable with that metal clamp in my eye. 

When it was all over, they took off the cloth mask and untaped my eye. Then they put clear contacts in to protect my cornea while the top layer was re-growing. Right before they put the contacts in, I was still staring up at the lights overhead, and everything was so clear. It was totally surreal. 

So they gave me a ton of medication to take home with me. There were pills for the pain. There were three different eyedrops that I had to take every four hours, and another drop that I had to take every three hours. Then there was still another drop that I was supposed to take whenever my eyes felt dry, which is a big side effect of laser eye surgery. And then they sent me home. 

Jacky was a godsend during this time. We taped blankets over the door and window in my bedroom, making it a pitch-black cave. This was where I holed up. Jacky downloaded me some audiobooks on my kindle, made me food, and made sure I took all of my drops on time. I really couldn't have gotten through it without him. 

My surgery was on a Saturday morning, and that day wasn't so bad. My eyes hurt, certainly, but the drops helped and so did the pain pills. I slept most of the time. 

Sunday was absolutely unbearable. I knew that Lasek was supposed to hurt - as opposed to Lasik, where there is virtually no pain - but I had no idea that it was supposed to hurt as much as it did. All of my friends who had had it done, even those that had gotten Lasek instead of Lasik, said that there pain was about a 3 or 4 out of 10. Mine was a 10 out of 10. It was excruciating. It was unbearable. I showed down on pain pills and probably took more eye drops than I should have in an attempt to alleviate the pain. I was crying, I was screaming. Poor Jacky did everything he could to make it bearable, but it was awful. I have five tattoos, two of which go over my very bony hips and two of which go over my very bony ribs, and this hurt a hundred times more than any tattoo. More than any broken bone I'd ever had. I thought I was going to die from the pain. And I couldn't even sleep, because my eyes hurt more closed than open. 

Eventually, around one o'clock Monday morning, Jacky pulled out the ice pack we keep in the freezer. He'd read online that icing could help with the pain. So I laid down with my face on an ice pack. It was hard, but, miraculously, it dulled the pain enough that I could sleep. When I woke up at eight o'clock Monday morning, the pain had subsided back down to about a 3, and it only went down from there. 

I had my surgery done over the Chuseok holiday, so I was off work Monday and Tuesday, which gave me a grand total of four days to recover. I needed all four days, of course, but dear god I was bored. I went through so many audiobooks, but that's all I could really do. I couldn't look at any screens. I couldn't even really be in the light since my eyes were so light sensitive. I couldn't even read or write by hand, since my eyes couldn't focus. 

I went back to work on Wednesday, four days after my surgery. The lights were all still too bright, so I wore sunglasses to all my classes. My students thought that was super funny. 

So I went back to the doctor for a follow-up visit on Saturday, one week after my surgery. The doctor took out the contacts that had been protecting my eyes and he did a sight test. And I passed with flying colors. "20/20!" he announced happily. But I was happier. 

I'm still recovering. It's been a little over a week and I can look at screens for short periods of time - no more than an hour or so, but it's still something. I'm no longer light-sensitive and only have to wear my sunglasses when I go outside. Things are still blurry sometimes. Sometimes my vision is really, really clear, and other times I have to squint really hard. I've also noticed that it's harder for me to read things up close than it had been before. But all in all, I think I came out incredibly lucky. 

It still hasn't fully sunk in. A lot of people don't understand what it means to have really poor eyesight. My friends always grumble about their -1.5 or -2. I was -8. Those people have no idea what it's like for people like me who truly couldn't see anything. Once, back when my mom still took me to my doctor's appointments, my eye doctor had sat her in his chair and adjusted his little machine so that she could see how I saw. She cried that day. She cried again when I called and told her that I had gotten the surgery - which I had done without telling my friends and family because I didn't want anyone to worry. But now I can see. I can see without contacts or glasses. I haven't thrown them away yet because there's this nagging feeling at the back of my mind that's like, what are you thinking? You can't get rid of your contacts and glasses! You need those to function! But I don't anymore. It's truly magical. 

Anyway, I know a lot of people won't read this, and that's okay. I just wanted to get this down somewhere so I could remember, and this seemed like as good a place as any. 

If you did read all of this, thanks <3