You know the old saying, 'if something can go wrong, it will.'? Well lemme tell you a little ditty. One day, Chi-Lan wakes up and decides to go to Cancun with a bunch of girlfriends. yeah. Everyone is happy and plans are made.
Enter Hurricane Dean. Well, with a hurricane on the horizon, many Mexicans are bracing for a natural disaster, the govenor of Quintana Roo asks that no one enter the region, and empty planes be sent to evacuate stranded tourists. Wow. That's a lot to take in 20 hours before departure. Needless to say, we cancel our trip.
Rewind 2 weeks. Being a prepared traveler, I decide that with so many wonderful opportunities to play into the water, I don't want to have to deal with the hassle of glasses nor contacts. And since 2 other of the girls got Lasik before the trip, I decide to 'get work done' as well.
So I choose this crazy good and expensive doctor in Beverly Hills, because, dude, you only have the two eyes to work with. You can't mess around. And since this guy has worked on some of the Lakers, I thought, yeah, I am in good hands. After many meetings and doctor's office visits, I come to learn that Dr. Andrew Caster is a very conservative doctor, which puts me even more at ease.
Well, it turns out that I have weak corneas and have to have RPK aka Advanced Surface Treatment, it's the other lasik. Oy, fine fine. If i move forward with this method, healing time increases to about a week, and I will have to deal with blurry vision for a week while all my lively cells grow back. However, I am assured that the results are the same in the end. Ok, let's rock and roll.
So being a curious nelly, while waiting for an hour in the chair with all these tests being run on me, I walk out to see another girl is being brought into the procedure room. And being an advanced lasik center, they show the entire procedure on a 20" monitor. But the size of the monitor is not important, what is important is that there I am, standing thinking, well I am going to be doing this soon, so why not take a look at what happens. And lemme tell you, there is nothing I have ever learned in school, the streets, rap videos, or from the secret decoder rings outta cereal boxes that could have prepared me for the horror of seeing someone's humongoid eyeball being kept open ala A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. I screamed with my inside voice and ran into my exam room.
As soon as someone in some scrubs walked by my semi-opened door, I screamed, where is the XANAX!!!!!! I, obviously, had caught a slight case of the jitters. After almost clawing my nails through the quality vinyl all office chairs are covered in, the nurse enters the room, and effectively draws a milk mustache on my face - out of chloroform. I got my Xanax! In less than 15 minutes, she said I was doing fine, moving slow, like a tortoise who had found a reason to move to the other end of the grass. I thought I was fast, but reality's wind resistance showed otherwise.
So somehow, totally unbeknownst to me, I make it into the procedure room. I remember a teddy bear being thrust into my arms, the same teddy bear that other girl who was just operated on had in her arms. And all I could think was, 'how many others, Teddy, how many others have had the 'pleasure' of holding your ass! You disgust me.' It turns out that drugs don't muffle my crazy meanness. Good to know.
Anyhow, all I remember is the doctor saying, 'now look straight into the laser and don't move'. But you know what? I don't remember moving because i remember thinking, 'I need to sleep. Totally sleepy. What's that smell? Are they burning my hair? OMG it's my eyeball. Don't move. They'll take out an eyelid. Oh I need to shut my eyes. Sooooo sleepy.'
Then like a rock star, I wobble out of the procedure room, and am given many medications for the next day and week, including a sexy pair of sleeping goggles, you know the kind, they look like you're going to go swimming....but instead of just being a sexy pair of sport goggles with clear lenses, you also have that coveted head wrap, and most importantly, medical tape to tape the stupid thing onto your face in an 'x'. Wow, is it hot in here, or is it just my goggled and taped up face? I am telling you, if the sexy police were on duty, they'd have to take me in.
Anyhow, long story short, not like I can really save it at this point, I did all the drops, ate all the meds, and taped my face many times. And a word to the wise, small pieces will do because that stuff leaves residue that sticks dirt and bugs to your face and makes you look homeless. At least that's what I have been told. Ok so however many weeks after my eyes are supposed to be semi-healed and I don't need to wear contacts (yeah!) or glasses (yeah!) I get told I need to wear glasses when I drive. WHHHHHAAAAAA??????? WTF?
That's right you all, out of the 14,000 procedures done by this office, and out of the thousands performed by this high-end advanced laser, for some reason, my eyes got 'Under corrected.' I am the 2nd case of this amazingness. Oh yeah! That means....my vision is not perfect! It's fuzzy. I need to wear glasses. And now I have to have the operation AGAIN! in two months! GAWD.
Now to come full circle, when something in my life can go wrong, I swear that it will.
