Life After LASIK

The Shah Eye Center Blog
happy woman after lasik

Life after Lasik… I… don’t really know where to start!

So, I’ll just jump in the deep end. There are so many things I would love to say about LASIK and it still wouldn’t do justice to the wonderful experience it’s been.

But I’ll keep things short and sweet for everyone.

If you guys don’t already know, my vision was something that I had struggled with since I was about 8 years old (emphasis on “had”).

I remember being in my elementary class and slowly seeing the whiteboard get more and more blurry as time passed.

Funny story, my mom didn’t believe me when I initially told her I was starting to struggle with my vision because I would come home raving about all of my friends getting cool, new glasses at school.

So, naturally, she thought I would tell her that I was having trouble seeing to persuade her to buy me cool glasses to match with my friends.

It wasn’t until I had my next yearly appointment that everything officially changed for me.

They sat me down on the chair to start my initial eye exam. The doctor asked, “Okay, can you read the first line?” And from a distance, I could barely make out the big letter “E” on the chart and said the letter out loud with what sounded like a big question mark at the end.

He proceeded to ask if I could read the second line and I just remember thinking “Oh, no way!” and was left with a blank face and no answer.

It was then that I was given a prescription for my first pair of glasses.

Little did I know that I would grow to resent them and get tired and frustrated that I couldn’t just wake up and see. By the age of 12, I was completely dependent on my glasses and started to do whatever I could to not wear them anymore.

This included excessive use and abuse of contact lenses. I developed eye infections due to never wanting to take my contact lenses out.

Again, I don’t use the term “struggled” lightly. I even went as far as purchasing hard contact lenses that I would sleep in.

Crazy, right?

Well, you can imagine that contacts wouldn’t be very comfortable to sleep in…and it wasn’t.

I began to start losing sleep due to the discomfort they would bring me at night, and finally, after about two months of using them continuously, I had to make the decision to discontinue them for the sake of a good night’s sleep.

Fast forward almost 15 years and hearing Dr. Shah say, “Alrighty, you’re all done. Let’s sit you up,” and reading the time on the digital clock across from me with my own eyes, with no help from any kind of visual correction.

It was 2:22 pm on September 7, 2018 that my life went from complete blurriness to what it is now…wait for it…20/15 on BOTH eyes!

YESSS!

It’s what I’d been waiting for and dreaming of since I was a small girl. I’ve never looked back since.

It’s still really weird to hear myself say that “I use” to wear glasses or contacts, since they were such a big part of my life for so long.

Now, I go on vacations and am able to see the world in vibrant colors with vision that is so crisp and clear to me; not to mention the liberating feeling of not having to worry about carrying glasses or contacts everywhere I go.

I am also now engaged (thank you, thank you) and can’t believe that in about a year from now, I will walk down the aisle, seeing the love of my life with my own eyes, waiting for me.

It’s the biggest gift and investment I have ever given myself and will forever be thankful for my newfound beautiful view of the world.