Don’t need hindsight to see 20/20

I just had my annual eye checkup. This is the one yearly doctor’s appointment I never miss and actually look forward to.  Why? because this is my ninth anniversary of 20/20 vision.  I say ninth anniversary because I had LASIK in 1999 and it is one of the best investments, expenses, splurges I am continually grateful for.

For anyone who has worn glasses or contacts for any length of time, you know what a pain both can be.  I started wearing glasses in kindergarten. They were hideous brown frames that were shaped like stop signs.  Believe me, my style didn’t graduate to much better as I got older and I had plenty of chances. During elementary school, I was getting new glasses on the average of every six months (yes, my eyes would progressively get that bad).  I remember, in third grade, the ophthalmologist suggesting we try bifocals. Oh yes, what a every four-eyed girl wants, to become six-eyed!   That was a horrible experience and didn’t help at all. She also suggested contacts, but my mom wouldn’t have any of it. Darn the luck.

In eighth grade, I finally convinced my mom that it was time to let me try contact lenses.  Because my eyes were so bad and the astigmatism so great, soft contacts were never an option for me.  Let me tell you, if you think soft are bad, try hard contacts.  It’s like having glass in your eye all the time.  But believe me, I would have done anything not to have to wear glasses anymore.  I had to gradually build up to wearing them, 2 hours a day, until I got to 8 hours. That first day I wore them to school was a highlight for me.  I felt like a new person.

I have done dumb things for the sake of vision – like sleeping in my contacts (mostly in college), not cleaning them every night like you are supposed to, wearing them when I went swimming (even opening my eyes under water with them on) and other stupid things like that so people would never see me in my glasses.  But for LASIK, I had to wear my glasses for a full two weeks before surgery because the hard lenses had actually warped my eyes so much, they had left an indent.  I can tell you, I never left my desk during that timeframe and didn’t do anything but go home.  Yes, I hated those coke-bottle glasses that much.

I can say that every day since I have had LASIK has been awesome. I have enjoyed what this surgery has done for my quality of life and will never regret the decision.  If you are on the fence about it, I would love to hear from you.  As someone with -12 and -13 vision and the thickest glasses you will probably ever see (even after I would pay the extra money to make them thinner), I would never trade this for anything and I truly mean anything.