An Experience of LASIK in San Diego

I've had poor vision (myopia and astigmatism) since before age 7. My pre-LASIK refraction is -6.25 right and -6.25 + 0.025 + 85 (is that 0.85?) left. It's pretty well correctable with eyeglasses, but not perfect. In short, I don't remember what it's like to see clearly. I'm now 47 years old. I'd like to be able to go camping and not have to hunt up my eyeglasses to go to the head at night. And I'm riding pillion on my husband's motorcycle and learning to ride my own, and I'd like to be able to get my helmet off and on without playing the eyeglasses dance. And, I'm simply sick and tired of having to deal with the extra equipment for all these years! I'm also developing an interest in astronomy. My husband commented that it's one of life's unkind ironies that someone with my vision becomes interested in such a vision-related thing as astronomy!

I also have a medical phobia that's extreme enough that it interferes with the level of health care I'm willing to go for. Luckily, I have never had an all-out panic episode connected with ophthalmology (otherwise I'd never have considered any sort of vision correction surgery). I manage dentistry with the liberal use of nitrous oxide and extremely patient dentists. I don't manage physician care well at all! I basically avoid it.

I was never inclined to consider RK vision correction, but a couple of years ago I saw that laser vision correction seemed to be available and reasonably safe. So I discussed it with my ophthalmologist. I went so far as to try to visit the Scripps ophthalmology clinic for a screening appointment. But Scripps is a large institution, and by the time I even managed to find the ophthalmology clinic door I was anxious enough that I simply cancelled the appointment.

Last November I went again to have my eyeglasses prescription checked. I again raised the question of vision correction with my opthamologist, and she said there had been advancements in the methods used. The original laser correction method - PRK - uses a laser to reshape the surface of one's eyes. The newer method - LASIK - involves cutting a flap of the surface and using the laser to reshape underneath, and then replacing the top layer. One advantage is that it retains the "Bowman layer" (I don't know how significant loss of Bowman layer is, but when I had my tonsils out they had believed tonsils are useless. And later found out they aid the immune system!) Another advantage is faster recover time - around a week for PRK and around a day for LASIK. A third advantage is less exposure to possible infection, since the surface of the eye is better protected.

I again asked my opthamologist for recommendations, and she gave me the name of the Scripps clinic and of Dr. Sandy Feldman at the ClearView, which is affiliated with TLC (The Laser Center). Since I'd bombed out with Scripps earlier, I made an appointment at ClearView.

I had my screening appointment with Dr. Feldman's associate Jim Owen, O.D. It was a thorough vision examination, and he dilated my pupils to check for whatever needs to be checked (myopic people are at higher risk for retinal detachment). I had been schedule to have this done by my regular opthamologist, and happily Jim told me he was checking the same things so I wouldn't need to have it done again. One thing he did that was good, in terms of my medical anxieties, was the glaucoma test. The equipment he used was the one that places a sensor directly on one's eyes, after having numbing drops. Several years earlier I'd had an opthamologist want to to this test, but I didn't feel up to the challenge at that time. I've since had the test where they blow a puff of air onto one's eyes, with no problem. With Jim I decided to "get brave". It was a piece of cake! There was just a moment's visual awareness of "something close to my eyes", but there really was no physical feeling at all during the test. I found that quite encouraging.

Jim then mapped my eyes. Since my pupils were still dilated from the exam, the light from the mapping equipment was rather intense. He had to make several attempts to get my left eye mapped. Later on, my friend Mike gave me a tip to deal with this. Mike is quite light-sensitive, and when dealing with the problem he holds a cold cloth (he said he'd have used an ice cube if he'd had one) against the side of his nose and cheekbone. I don't know if there's any structural reason why this would work, but it sounds like it would at least be sufficiently distracting. :-)

Jim also raised the possibility of a monovision correction. That would be to correct my dominant eye for far vision and my other eye for near vision. The advantage would be that I could go at least a few more years before needing reading glasses (due to age-related farsightedness). He set up the ophthalmology equipment lenses to give me an idea of what that would be like. I found I was easily able to see the images across the room, and still read from the close-up card. We'd already established that my binocular vision is poor (my eyes don't work well 'together'). And since I've never really seen clearly, I'm pretty forgiving of 'glitches' in my vision. As far as the astronomy, I only use one eye at a time through the eyepiece anyway. And if my binocular vision wasn't good before the vision correction I wouldn't be losing anything there, either. The clincher was, if I found monovision to be a big nuisance they could later do an adjustment on my non-dominant eye to bring it to the same correction as my dominant eye. So it seemed like a sensible thing to do.

After we determined that I was a good candidate for LASIK, I brought up the potential problems due to my medical phobia. I had a short conversation with Dr. Feldman. She explained that she would prescribe 5 mg Valium for before, and Vicadin for after the procedure. I told her that I'd had Valium before on two occasions and it didn't do anything to help me avoid the panic. She said she needed her clients to be at least somewhat aware, which was why she started with 5 mg. She suggested that I try the 5 mg, and when I was actually at the eye clinic, if it seemed like I needed more and it wouldn't knock me out entirely that we'd try a second 5 mg.

I also brought up the concern of having night-vision problems, which would be a nuisance for astronomy. Dr. Feldman had said that there was a possibility of needing glasses for driving at night. Apparently the reason is that correction is done to a diameter of 6 mm, and one's pupils after dark can expand as large as 8 mm. There's still a possibility I'll have vision effects after dark. I'd elected to go ahead anyway, and take that risk. At worst for astronomy I'll simply use eyepieces that only have 6mm "exit pupils" so the field of view will be restricted to the corrected part of my vision.

So with this much encouragement, I made an appointment for 9 AM, on the last Friday in January. I needed to wait until 1999 so that I could pay for the procedure from a Medical Savings Account through work, so it would be pre-income-taxed money. The cost is considerable - $2400 per eye. This includes the screening exam (which would have been free even if I'd opted not to have the LASIK done), the LASIK itself, any follow-up adjustments within the first year, and all follow-up visits and care which will be done my by regular opthamologist.

So, I had two months' to wait. For most of that time, my medical phobia wasn't any problem since the whole thing seemed so far distant. I started looking up information about LASIK on the internet, keeping in mind the dynamic that people who have complaints are generally more vocal than people with no complaints. And I found nothing to put me off the idea. I did find a site that was a description of someone's actual experience with LASIK. I was glad I'd found that site, because it described sights and sounds and feelings. Even though I'm aware that everyone perceives the world in a different way, it was good to have a heads-up on what *might* be happening. Without that, any unforeseen negative experience would be another potential trigger for panic.

By the Monday preceding my appointment, I hadn't heard from ClearView. So I phoned them and we made arrangements for me to pay. They also told me they'd reset the appointments, and mine was now at 1:30 PM. "Oh, dear!" I exclaimed. I explained that I had medical phobia, and it could be a significant problem for me to have that extra few hours to deal with fighting panic. They said, "Let's see what we can do ... I'll call you right back." In about ten minutes, they phone me and said they rearranged things so I could have a 10:15 AM appointment. That was much easier on me, and I was grateful for their accommodation.

During the rest of the week, I announced to my husband that I was going to deal with the phobia by playing a variant on Heavy Denial, which rationalization goes something like: "it isn't happening right now, so simply ignore it".. :-) It mostly worked, except that he doesn't generally use that tactic and I could tell he was feeling his way through playing that game. On Thursday evening he did tell me that he could almost feel "waves of anxiety" emanating from me. I admitted that I could feel them, too. He also mentioned in passing that I was downright ratty (unpleasant) on Thursday evening. That surprised me. I was thinking that considering the amount of anxiety I was denying, I was being very good about not biting his head (or any other parts) off! By Friday morning when I really needed it, he'd got quite good at playing Heavy Denial along with me.

On Friday morning I had a decaf cafe mocha, in place of my usual caffeinated one. I didn't see any point to having caffeine to fight with the Valium. I took my 5 mg Valium 30 minutes before my appointment time (they suggest at least 15 minutes before, and in my experience it takes me longer to feel the effects of medication). We got to the eye clinic, and had a short wait. During the wait I got a chance to hear what the laser equipment sounds like, which was a good thing since it was one less unknown for me to deal with while my LASIK was actually being performed.

Presently I was fetched by Maria, the nurse who assisted in my procedure. At this point, I was feeling no different at all due to the Valium, but I wasn't really expecting it to have had any effect. Maria was a blessing, in the way she helped me deal with my potential anxiety. She put a gauze cap over my hair, held in place by several strips of tape (easy-to-remove tape, so that didn't turn out to be any problem. The cap caught on my earrings since I hadn't remembered not to wear them. Not a problem ... Maria simply put a piece of tape over my earrings. And I have lots of short ends that get in my face so we played a game of finding them all and taping them out of the way. Then she painted my eyes with some iodine stuff to clean them. And of course my husband needed a picture of me made up like a raccoon! *g* Maria then wiped the iodine off and put in drops of various sorts (I'm guessing antibiotic and anesthetic). Then Dr. Feldman came in and put more anesthetic drops in, and used an instrument which she placed on my eyes to measure the depths of the corneas. I found this reassuring, since it confirmed for me that there was no sensation in my eyes themselves.

So in we went, and they had me sit on the chair-which-straightens-into-a-table, and moved me so I was under the equipment. It was a bit of an imposing sight. I was comforted by the blinking red light, since it looked the same as the one in the machine Jim had used to map my eyes. Dr. Feldman put more numbing drops in, and taped two eyelid-shaped things over my eyelashes to keep them out of the way. She then put the eye-holding-open gadget in place. It was a totally new physical sensation. It was OK above and below my eyes, but was rather painful on the inside near my nose! I said so, and she adjusted it, but - uh-oh ... *not* good for my anxiety level. Maria had been sitting alongside me, with her hands over mine for both comfort and control. When panic is impending I have a "curl-up" reaction. I started to do that, and they all stopped for a minute and Maria gently coaxed me back down. Then, while no one was doing particularly anything, I felt the panic rushing back.

"I can't do this!", I exclaimed. Dr. Feldman immediately stopped, and asked a few times to make sure she understood that I really needed to stop. Their reaction was blessedly immediate - Dr. Feldman removed the eye-opener-thingy and the eyelash holders. They wheeled me out from under and sat me up. That was absolutely the best thing they could have done to stave off impending panic, and I was impressed as well as grateful.

In the past I've encountered a variety of reactions to my anxieties and panics. The absolute worst is disbelief. I've learned in those cases to simply remove myself physically from the premises, and never go back. Another reaction which I simply can't deal with is when the care-givers themselves become anxious. Then my anxiety feeds on theirs, and the chances of my getting by without a full-out panic attack are so slim that I don't stay in those situations, either.

The reaction that seems to be least distressing goes something like this: I see that you're distressed. We'll remove you from the immediate distress, and then explore what to do next.

And that's what we did. Dr. Feldman suggested that I try a second 5 mg Valium, and wait while she treated another client. In the meantime, my husband and I cooled our heels in a conference room, since it was more relaxed there than out in the lobby. After about twenty minutes, during which Maria and another nurse made periodic checks to make sure we were OK, she asked if I was ready to try again. I still wasn't feeling very affected by the Valium. I said I'd be willing, but I estimated the chances about 90% that I'd need to pull out again. Not a problem, was the reply. There were two more possibilities. Sometimes it simply took longer for the Valium to work. We could wait for another half hour while Dr. Feldman treated another client, and then decide whether to have another go. If that didn't work, she could wait until late in the afternoon until the Valium had left my system and try a different anti-anxiety drug.

So, we waited more. And after about ten minutes, during which it became more and more difficult to converse with my husband, I felt like nothing else than zoning out. So I slouched in the conference room chair and did exactly that. And in another ten minutes or so, when Maria and Dr. Feldman came back, I was semi-surprised that I felt good enough to have another go. And my husband mentioned that he'd noticed my breathing change, and could tell the Valium was finally having some effect.

So again Maria cleaned my eyes (my husband was kind and didn't take a second "raccoon" picture *g*). Dr. Feldman came in and put some extra topical anesthetic around my eyes, since I'd had a problem with the eye-opener-thingy the previous time. And she double-checked that it was helping me to have her explain what she was doing, as she worked. She offered music as a distraction, but I've learned that trying to mask the hear-and-now increases my anxiety rather than relieves it. I had asked Dr. Feldman if it was possible to have me under the equipment as short a time as possible. She said not really, but suggested I look rightward or leftward except when she absolutely needed me to look upward. I followed her suggestion and it was quite a help. This time the eye-opener-thingy wasn't a problem on my first eye. And almost immediately after I needed to look upward, Dr. Feldman was working on my eye. I could feel the suction on my eye, but since I'd earlier read someone's description that included this, it wasn't a surprise. And it wasn't particularly unpleasant ... just different from anything I'd ever felt. I even got a visual treat while while she was creating the corneal flap, because the image was of multi-colored sparkly confetti! :-)

And as she worked, Dr. Feldman made gave me periodic progress of "Perfect ... perfect ...". That was comforting, because it assured me that she remembered that there was a real live person down here, and the repetition became mantra-like and was a good focus for disregarding any potential anxiety (of which, by now, there was little or none). I heard the loud clicking of the laser, which again wasn't a surprise since I'd heard it from the lobby. And as another bonus, I fairly soon heard someone in the corner counted down the last five seconds or so. Then I saw/felt Dr. Feldman replace the corneal flap. She said, and then I felt, a cool sensation (the coolness was, she said, from the fluid leaking onto my cheek).

The left eye was easier than the right. I'd read in one person's description that they had more trouble with the second eye because they "knew what to expect". I found the opposite, that it made it easier. I did have more trouble with the eye-opener-thingy. It hurt my left eye when Dr. Feldman first put it in. I told her it was hurting, and she loosened it as much as she could. Then when she did need to open it a bit more, it wasn't quite so painful, possibly because I'd felt that before.

I again got the visual treat of "sparkly confetti" while Dr. Feldman created the corneal flap. And again the laser clicking, and someone counting down the last five seconds, and again Dr. Feldman replaced the flap.

And Maria, who'd been comfortingly by my side, rolled me out. I remembered to flash a thumbs-up to my husband in the next room. Dr. Feldman used a different piece of equipment to give my eyes one last check. Then we were done! She taped plastic eye-protectors in place, and said to come to her office the next morning and leave them in place until then.

So we, all victorious, crowded into the hallway. Simon snapped a victory pic of our team of Maria and Dr. Feldman and myself. :-)

Dr. Feldman had suggested that I have lunch, take a Vicadin for when the numbing drops wore off, and go home and snooze for a few hours. So that's what we did.

They told me I'd be unable to drive immediately afterwards. I found that to be true, big time! Not only the Valium, to which I'm unaccustomed, but the change in visual perception.

My husband bought me lunch, brought me home, made sure his portable radio was at hand with fresh batteries, and built me a cafe mocha for comfort. I had my lunch and Vicadin, then created myself a nest on our sofa and settled in. And he went to work for the afternoon.

I snoozed off and on and listened to the radio. A friend of mine had warned me that the Vicadin might give me an upset stomach, but I didn't have any trouble with it. I was conscious of what felt like uncomfortable photo-sensitivity. (Before he left, my husband had closed the blinds.) It seemed to come in 'waves', but even so I was able to sleep for several minutes at a time. It wasn't a picnic, but I've had worse allergy nights when I couldn't manage to sleep at all! Around 3 PM my husband phoned to see how I was doing. I found, to my surprise, that I actually felt better with my eyes opened for short stretches at a time. So the discomfort wasn't entirely photo-sensitivity. It was partially, though, because at one point I laid a cloth for added dimness over the plastic eye guards and that felt a bit better. I had read of people feeling a something-in-one's-eye sensation, but I didn't have any of that sort of feeling. I tried a few minutes of watching television, but that wasn't very comfortable.

Shortly before 5 PM, Gloria phoned from Dr. Feldman's office to see how I was doing. I was delighted at this bit of extra caring.

Also shortly before 5 PM I got up again, and the discomfort was considerably less. The sun was behind the hill, so I even ventured outside to pick up the mail. I discovered that my depth perception is "different". I've encountered the same thing when I've had my prescriptions changed, especially while I was wearing contact lenses. I wonder how long that will last. My distance vision was clear as a bell! When I looked at the mail, though, I perceived that my close-up vision wasn't yet wonderful. That's due at least in part to the fact that the plastic eye-guards are taped on a bit crooked, because if I look "just so" I can find a sweet spot with which to see things close.

It's now 10 PM, and I have no eye discomfort at all. I have just a touch of vertigo due to the change in depth perception, but I've also had that before. It simply takes getting used to. I went out on errands earlier this evening, and I have noticeably larger halos around lights than I had with eyeglasses. That's totally expected, and it'll be several weeks at least before that settles. I have no noticeable 'star' effects at this point. I cranked up the font size on my Usenet reader, but it's still an effort to read it so I think I'll simply wait until tomorrow. I'm a touch typist, so it's not so difficult to type this. :-)

I woke up with my right eye feeling a bit "dry". And that same ache that felt like photo-sensitivity, except it wasn't because it felt better to have my eyes open. I had an 8:30 AM appointment (unearthly early hour for a Saturday! *g*) at Dr. Feldman's office. There I saw Jim Owen, who removed the plastic eye guard. He looked at my eyes through the equipment and said there was a contact lens in my right eye, that he would be removing. I said, "That really spooks me, that you're going to take a contact lens out, because Dr. Feldman hadn't told me she put one in!" He explained that she will normally do that if there's any sort of <I forget the word he used> in either eye. "Ah, that makes me feel better, because she did remark that there had been a scratch on my right eye", I replied. So Jim took out the contact lens and my near vision improved noticeably as he'd said it would. He then put the dye in my eyes and used the purple light to examine them again, and said they looked as good as one could expect.

My vision right now is somewhat less sharp than it was with my eyeglasses, and I was seeing "ghosts". Jim said they don't even bother to do a refraction the morning after, since it takes time for one's vision to "settle down". He said it will fluctuate noticeably for a month. He also said that optimists always expect it to get better, and pessimists always expect it to get worse, but in reality it simply fluctuates. He gave me anti-inflammatory eyedrops and anti-biotic eyedrops along with instructions for using them. He also gave me a "Lifetime Commitment Membership Record". My guess is that this "lifetime" thing is at least in part to remind me strongly that I am *still* a myope with accompanying increased risk of retinal detachment and suchlike, and I need to continue to get eye exams as I would have before.

So when I got home, the remainder of the Valium and Vicadin got ceremoniously deposited in the freezer, against the possibility that I'll need an adjustment done. And I did my first set of anti-biotic eyedrops. People had mentioned that they may sting, but mine didn't at all.

Saturday afternoon we had lunch out with a friend, and then a wander along the waterfront. I came home in the early evening feeling desperately in need of a nap. I had a good sleep, and must have needed it because it didn't interfere with my sleep that night at all. And on Sunday and Monday evenings I also needed a nap. Today (Tuesday) I seem to have got beyond that.

And my vision seems to be getting better with time. There's less ghosting and halos are less evident. On Saturday I cranked my computer fonts up two sizes, and made them bold. At work on Monday I only needed to crank fonts up one size. The effect that's annoying me now is my not-far not-near vision. I can manage reading, and rooflines and treetops are pretty clear. But that doorway I'm heading for is still fuzzy.

Hmm ... after a week of elation (more than I was conscious of, maybe), today I'm feeling a bit of a let-down. I think it's inevitable. Like the let-down after Christmas.

I think maybe it's because my opthamologist (my regular one is doing my post-LASIK care ... she works cooperatively with my LASIK opthamologist) measured me at 20/40 in both eyes (down from around 20/800 pre-LASIK) and didn't give me any reassurances about it's possibility of getting better. The engineer in me tells me that's it's not a rational feeling ... the LASIK opthamologist had said my vision may fluctuate noticeably for a month. And it's a wound, that needs to heal. Still, I haven't seen any improvement in my acuity after the first few days.

What I have seen is that I'm getting better accommodated to the monovision. I can now read fairly easily. I expect that took a bit of work since my right eye (my "reading" eye) is my non-dominant eye. And now it's being asked to work rather diligently. My computer fonts are all back to one size larger than they were pre-LASIK. And I had no trouble reading the tiny print on the reading cards at the opthamologist.

And physically, I'm feeling like I'm over the LASIK. I had no need to leave work early, and even managed all three hours of my after-work class without any discomfort.

So, the way things are now I'm reading easily. I'm driving with no problems except that I need to be rather close to signs to read them (due at least in part to ghosting). I see halos at night but they don't impede my driving. Quite-far things (like rooflines a half block away) seem clear, but I may simply not expect or need them to be really clear. The opthamologist said I still have some astigmatism, and that's the cause of ghosting and halos.

For the long term, I'd be quite happy to keep a pair of driving glasses, for reading signs, as long as I wasn't dependent on them to drive safely. And I'm starting to get accustomed to the slight lack of acuity in mid-distant things, where I don't really need acuity. And I'm happy that reading is getting easier.

The one thing I have currently that's not OK for long-term is the astigmatism in my left eye. That's my astronomy eye, and I'm seeing "ghosts" through the telescope. Oh, but ... and this is cheering me up just thinking about it :-) ... I had set up the telescope on Wednesday (a rare non-cloudy night). And the improvement in focusing that I'd seen with the binoculars is also there for the telescope. Jupiter was a treat! I could see the four Galilean moons before, but never like this ... other than the ghosting, they were perfect pinpoints! And my ghosting happened to be far enough away from the central image that I could see in spite of it. And I could see the bands, much better than I had ever before (including in my friend's 6" SCT). Heh ... I was about to say that it wasn't a wonderful seeing night, since the stars were "twinkling". That's pretty, but it's difficult for astronomy observation. But I just realized ... I don't know if the twinkling was a post-effect from the LASIK. And my husband wasn't around to provide any confirmation.

I had got a suggestion from another person interested in astronomy that continuing the anti-inflammation eyedrops for a longer period may help for smoother healing from the LASIK. (They were prescribed to be used for a week, and I've now been using them a week and a half.) I brought the suggestion to my ophthalmologist. She said it was an interesting idea, but then when she checked my eyes through her microscope-thingie (I don't know what it's called) she was amazed! She said she could see no remaining evidence of the corneal flap in my right eye, and just a trace next to my nose in my left eye (which she said may be causing the "ghosting"). She added that she'd never before seen anyone's eyes heal that quickly. She said that the flaps are now adhered, but suggested that I might want to taper off the anti-inflammation eyedrops over the next few days instead of stopping suddenly.

My vision didn't seem to change for yet another week. But in the third week ... wow! It was all over the place. It got to be downright annoying. Every time I'd look up things would look different.

It settled down noticeably by the end of the fourth week, when I went for my one-month checkup. And it's better! :-) I checked out at 20/25 with my distance eye and 20/20 with my near eye. The refraction was OD -1.25-50x127 and OS +.75-.25x178. The OD is my 'near' eye, so the remaining nearsightedness is planned. But later on in that same exam, after we'd been shining lights into my eyes and "working" my eyesight, my distance eye could only manage 20/40. That didn't surprise me, because I've been noticing that "working" to see (which I typically do close-up since my work and play are all close-up sorts of things) results in trouble seeing distance.

The ghosts are much dimished. They're still there, but at first they were strong enough that it was almost like seeing double. Now it's just like a shadow effect. As for the healing, the opthamologist said there were only a few tiny striations (I think that was the word) in my field of vision. And she wrote me out all my "numbers" from this visit and my one-week visit, and promised to get me the numbers for my pre-op and one-day exams. So I've built a table (which I'll fill in when I get the numbers):

	uncorrected	OD (right)	OS (left)	corrected
pre-op	est. 20/800	<?>	<?>	<?>
one day	<?>	<?>	<?>	<?>
one week	20/40	-.75-50x130	+1.5-1.0x001	R20/25 L20/25
one month	R20/20 L20/25	distance: -1.25-50x127 reading: +.25-50x127	+.75-.25x178 +2.25-50x178	R20/15 L20/25 R20/20 L20/20

I had bought myself a pair of mild (0.75 or 1.25 - I forget which) diopter reading glasses to wear while driving, because they made it a bit easier to read the words on street signs. But they're cheap plastic, and the optics are pretty wretched. It's a toss-up whether it's better to use them or not.

And stars no longer all look like doubles. :-) Now they each look like three small stars piled one on top of the other two. Is that progress? *g* Anyway, we had the 'scope out for the Venus-Jupiter conjunction, and I realized that I'd switched to using my right eye. Even though it's corrected for close-up, I could accommodate for that with focus.

Before LASIK, I was frustrated at not being able to see things other people could see. This went beyond the "learning to see" that astronomical observers need. For one thing, I could not focus! Without my eyeglasses it was simply impossible since the focus mechanism didn't move far enough. Even with my eyeglasses, I never could get a sharp image, even working with both focus mechanisms in the binoculars. I got in the habit of asking my husband to focus for his vision, and it inevitably was better focus for me than I was able to get for myself. In fact, it was only recently, on a night of exceptionally good seeing several months after I started to look for it, that I was able to distinguish the Orion Nebula from just another out-of-focus star.

The night after my LASIK, when I saw how pronounced halos and ghosting were, I wondered well that would settle down and how long it would take. But things got better pretty quickly.

On Sunday night I looked at Sirius through the binocs. I had to work to eliminate double vision. In fact, at one point I managed to see six Siriuses! Then I remembered to "ignore" my right eye (monovision correction) and it was immediately better. Although each star had its halo, I was able to for the first time to focus to see a sharp "center".

This evening (Tuesday) I just had a look at Venus. Halo is much decreased, and no hint of double vision. Depending on our weather for the next couple of nights, I think it might be time to pack the 'scope into the car and drive out to our local Dark Place.

I generally don't like to put anyone else's stuff on my pages. But I've been using this reminder service and so far it's been OK. Since I plan to update this page as things happen, you might want to try it if you're interested in seeing my changes. You should be able to use your browser "back" button to come back here after you register for the reminder service.

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