total wuss

well, first off the good news. I got my call back to return to work. I got a call asking if I wanted to return to work on Dec 16th and work till Jan 20th but due to the holiday plans coming up I couldn't take them up on that offer so had to decline. The result being that I am to return work on January 2nd. So am looking forward to it though on the down side I have been trying to cook here on my time out and so far I have been extremely disappointed with the results. I dont know what it is but everything that I seem to attempt flops. About the only thing that seems to come out decently are the premade 'just add water/milk' things. Really disappointing but am hoping that it is just practice and once I get back to the kitchen I can get back my kitchen groove/mojo. So, yeah me! going back to work. Good thing to because I have been unemployed for nearly 6 weeks now and I think the government has almost decided to grant my EI. Good to know that in a pinch the government pays quickly on the insurance that I pay into on a regular basis everytime I work.

Also, I finally got fed up with my glasses and got LASIK surgery. I was always fed up working in the kitchen when I would look down to see what I was cutting and my glasses would slid down to the end of my nose and I would constantly have to push them up with my shoulder or elbow. There were also the times when I would be asked to go and bring out some stuff from the freezer and, after spending about 3-4 minutes searching for the item, would walk out to a hot and moist kitchen and be totally blind for a good 2 minutes while my glasses defogged, all the while trying to carry 3 boxes full of meat and find a counter to put them down on. There were even a couple times when glasses nearly slid right off my face into the dressings or salads I was making at the time. So when I heard that LASIK had a $499/eye promotion, I jumped at the chance to get an appointment to be looked over.

Though my first lesson with that $499 is just like the cable or internet services that say "$5.99/month" that price usually only applies to them looking at your cable and going "yep, looks like you need our $500/month package". I am pretty sure that the $499/eye price that they are quoting is for people who have 20/20 vision right now but seem to think that they dont and the doctor just brings them in, puts drops in their eyes, tells them to lie on their back and wave a flash light in front of their face to make them think that they had an operation. Won't go quoting numbers, but lets just say that the $499/eye was on the way low end. However, being so fed up with glasses and having them wave 20/20 vision in front of me I signed up. Thus I learned that I am a wuss, total and complete wuss.

I went through the eye test with ease and actually found my dialated pupils really funky. I had to laugh because my pupils were dialated at the beginning of the exam. In this phase they basically took a picture of my inner eye, did a quick eye chart test, flashed lights in my eye and took measurements. I went to the second phase which was a more indepth eye chart test along with colour test before I was told that I was a candidate for LASIK and, lucky luck me, I was also a candidate for the ADVANCED LASIK, what a coincidence. So, not only was I open for an operation that was 2.5 times that of the $499/eye promotion but I was also available for a chance to get the advanced one that would be 3.5 times the promotion.

Difference between the LASIK and the ADVANCED, if you are interested, is that (and this is paraphrased that I sort of put it into my vocabulary cause with me it seems to be easier to just put it into simple phrases than the complex) with the LASIK they basically look into your eye and treat it like a cantalope and scoop out the flesh with a ice cream scoop to make the whole cantalope smooth and even. When it comes to the ADVANCED they take a picture of the whole cantalope and then see what parts need to be smoothed out and brought down to the right level. As you can guess, the ADVANCED is better for future operations since they only scrap off the level of cornea/melon that needs to come out to level it off leaving more cornea/melon available to be scraped out at a later date if needed for correction. The regular LASIK might take more of the melon/cornea down to the point that the cornea/melon might be too thin that it can't be shaved down at a later time.

Anyways, after I finished with my second phase and was put to the third and most enjoyable phase (the price and payment discussion) my eyes were fully dialated meaning that everything, even with my glasses on, had a sort of fuzzy/blurry look to it. I went in to the third phase, meet with a rather blurred faced lady and she started to go through the paperwork for the procedure, first by putting down a post-operative plan for what I should expect of the whole procedure. She calmly picked up all the papers, put one in front of me and started to talk about it, I leaned forward and took a look at a totally blurred piece of paper and leaned back and I guess I had the look of "what the heck are you doing?" (similiar to the look that you might get if you accidentally handed a deaf individual a set of headphones on the airplane) cause she just asked "you had your eyes dialated, didnt you?". With a nod and "yep" she started to read the papers to me and explain it all.

I was in to have my eye test on the Thursday and had my operation on Saturday. I know, rather quick but the next dates were the 19th and 28th of Dec and I wanted to get it down quickly so that I could heal while I was still out of camp. Here is where I know that I am a complete and total wuss when it comes to eye surgery. I have to admit that I have had dental work, stitches sewed into my flesh (as my parents will tell me with much fondess I pretty much had a usual room in the childs section emergency ward in the hospital I was such a curious little kid) and even had two surgeries that required actual flesh cutting and I did not feel as much as 1/4 of the anxiety and stress I felt going through the laser eye surgery. Guess I just dont like having people mess with my eyes, or even put eye drops in my eyes.

During the paper work part of the process one of the assistants asked if I wanted some form of muscle relaxant or anything to help with the anxiety. I said I did so she gave me this little white pill to put under my tongue. Now, they told me it was a an anxiety drug but for all the good it did at the moment I needed it I am sure it was a sugar pill. The lead up was no problem but once I got in the room and they put me on my back the whole thing went nutty. I remember laying on my back and the assistant giving me two 'stress balls', you know the ones that are filled with the beans or some sort of foam that you are to squeeze when you feel stress to help you relax, to hold for the operation. They taped up my left eye and got out an piece of eye equipment that I forget the name of to spread open my eye so I cant blink. Think a spreader that clamps under each lid and then by dialing a screw the spreader opens wider to the point that the doc can work. Then they press a piece of plastic over the eye and apply some pressure to your eye and your vision goes dark. You can experience this by just pushing on your eye till all goes black and you see those wonderful little stars in front of your eyes.

So, the doctor started to put the clamp in my eye and calmly said "ok, now you can start to squeeze on the.....oh, I see you are already doing that". I think from the moment that the assistant had the balls in my hand I instantly had them gripped in a death grip so tight that I was surprised that they didnt break or have my fingers permanantly indented in them. After that it was basically all a blur except for the times that the doctor had to say "ok, you are going to have to breath. Stop clenching your eyes and concentrate on your breathing. Breath.....Ok, don't hyperventalate, slow down your breathing...ok, doing good...remember to breath...breath...in and out...breath...dont hyperventalate" and back and forth through the whole operation. I wish he would just make up his mind. I breath or dont breath...sheesh.

Once my eyes were opened and drops put in with the laser aimed, after a brief buzz and a smell of burning hair (though personally it smelt more like that smell that you get when the dentist drills your fillings/tooth but doesnt put enough lube on the drill and you start to see smoke rising from your tooth), he took it all out and I was done in that eye and, oh joy oh joy, got to do it all again on the next eye.

When the whole operation was finished I guess the assistant figures I was a fainting risk because instead of just going "ok, lets go over to the microscope and take a look now" I got the "ok, whenever you are ready...just breath...when you are ready we can go over to that chair...now right now...whenever you are ready...how are you feeling?....ready? think you can walk?" Personally I was so thrilled to have the clamps out of my eyes that I was ready to walk anywhere they wanted me to to get out of that room as quickly as possible.

So in the end it was done. We were there for about 5 hours, most of it waiting, and the whole thing was done. The Mrs stayed with me the whole time which was really good of her. Granted once I was out of surgery and she heard the above story she got herself a good laugh over it all. After it was all said and done we got a cab home and I got my 2 hour nap, followed by 4 hours of card playing and then back to bed for the night. Now, after my first check up, I am think I am at 20/20 vision. It was so funny when I woke up with the Mrs and I walking around the house putting things up a distance away from me and I was reading boxes and beer bottles from varying distances to prove that my eyes were good. Now I just have 6 more days of putting drops in my eyes on a regular basis and I will be back to normal and not have any more glasses. Well, no more glasses until I turn 40 and need reading glasses as my M-I-L points out to me. *G*

so yeah, that is where I am at the moment. Heading back to work in 4 weeks, parents coming down in about 2 and half weeks and christmas coming up as well. Oh, how I love the holidays*G*