New Eyes!

I'm typing this blogpost with new eyes! Well...almost! Yesterday, I had LASIK done and it's amazing how fast of a recovery it is!

Let's back up though.  I'm sure that when you read that I had LASIK, you were like "Wait. You had LASIK in Turkey?"  At least, that was my reaction when Mike suggested it.  There was no way I was going to go to some hole in the wall, shady doctor's office and have them operate on my eyes.  Once again, though, Turkey has proved me wrong.   Apparently, Turkey is a huge medical tourism location, especially for LASIK.  When we started looking into having it done here, we found a company that sets up a whole vacation for you surrounding your procedure.  You pay a flat fee that includes your airfare, hotel, the procedure and three days of sightseeing in Izmir or Istanbul.  How crazy is that?!

Obviously, I didn't need the whole travel package, but I did contact the doctor associated with this and made an appointment to meet with her and discuss details, as well as make sure I was comfortable with the doctor herself.  When I called to make the consultation appointment, they wanted to do it in the morning and then have the procedure done in the afternoon, but I wasn't quite ready for that quick of a turn around.  Instead, I agreed to meet with her on a Friday and to go from there.

The consultation was great.  The nurses and receptionist didn't speak much English, which made me a little hesitant, but the doctor spoke very clear and fluent English, which eased my nerves.  After talking to her about the procedure and how it would work, we set up the appointment for Tuesday.

Tuesday came and was pretty chaotic (I'll get to that in another post at some point...), but we decided to go ahead with the procedure.  I arrived at 3:30, but spent the first hour waiting and hanging out.  They did do some test on my eyes, but for the most part, we were just waiting.  It was rough because I was antsy and starting to think about what they were actually going to do, which I had successfully avoided doing before this.

Around 4:45, they came and got me and took me upstairs. The procedure went extremely quickly and I was done and back in the room with Mike around 5:20.  Overall, the procedure was pretty easy.  I realized, though, that whenever anyone tries to touch anywhere on my face, I close my eyes.  Like, at the dentist, I usually just close my eyes.  This whole strategy obviously didn't work out and I was pretty tense, but luckily, it really didn't hurt and the doctors were great.

When it was over, they took me back in the room where Mike was. I felt completely fine at first, and then all of a sudden my eyes started burning.  By the time we got in the cab to go home, I could barely open my eyes and had tears streaming down my face.  Mike guided me like the blind person that I was to our bed room where I fell asleep for an hour.  When I woke up, my eyes still hurt and I found that sitting in the bathroom where there is absolutely no light was the only solution.  Luckily, the burning subsided once I was able to put drops in my eyes and by the end of the night, I was able to hang out, although I was still struggling a little and looking at a computer screen was definitely not an option.

This morning, we returned to the doctor for a follow up and she said everything looked good.  She said that my distance vision would still be a little blurry (which it is), but that's completely normal and would get better within the next few days.  Today was pretty incredible because I was able to live my life almost normally.  I went to a meeting and was able to fill out paper work.  I was looking at my phone and am now typing on the computer.  The only things I've noticed are that I have a little bit of a headache because I think my eyes are tired and my distance vision is not quite there yet, but other than that, it's like whole new eyes.  Oh and I look like I've been getting high because my eyes are so blood shot, but really, minor details.  :)

I'm so glad that we decided to do this.  Last year, I ended up paying ~$300 for contact lenses and a contact lens consultation because they aren't included in our insurance.  We payed ~$1300 (thank you tax return!) for LASIK in Turkey, so in five years, we will have saved money.  I felt completely comfortable with the doctor and she was extremely professional.  Overall, it's been a great experience and I'm thankful that we chose to do it.