laser eye surgery is my thing

I have been pretty much blind for forever.

Not *actually* blind. I can see. It’s just that I have to wear coke-bottle thick glasses or very strong contacts to do it.

I got my first pair of specs in Gr. 4, but I should have been wearing them years before that.

When I finally went home with my very own (God-awful) spectacles (thick, pink plastic rims) my optometrist said to my mom, “I’m not sure how she hasn’t been running into things all this time…”

I’m not sure if he was trying to make my mom feel guilty, but he nailed it!

And so – drum roll please – in a couple weeks I am going in for laser eye surgery.

I’m doing it. I’m willingly going under the knife.

I am going to LET them cut my eyeball. I’m just going to let ’em do it.

My apologies for being rather dramatic but this is a big deal for me. These are my EYEBALLS, after all.

As I said in beginning, I have had very, very, very poor eyesight for as long as I can remember looking around at stuff. By the time I was 9 years old, being carted off to get my eyes tested felt like a fairly common occurrence.

Can you read the top line?

E?

How about the next one down?

Uhhhh….

It felt like I was constantly going to get my eyes checked and they were constantly getting worse and I was constantly getting new horrid frames…

… that were always pink for some inexplicable reason.

Since they kept getting worse and worse, my child-brain came to the conclusion I imagine any child-brain might come to:

It was only a matter of time before my eyesight would become so poor that I would just be completely and totally, 100% blind.

And I was pretty freaked out about that possibility, but in the way that kids are quietly terrified by some things but still carry on. For example, I was also quite sure quicksand was going to suck me into the Earth while walking through the forest, and I regularly laid awake imagining how I would escape the kidnappers that would inevitably find me in my house in the night and lug me away. And that witch in the basement I *knew* didn’t exist TERRIFIED ME nonetheless, but I just stayed upstairs at night and willed her creepiness out of my consciousness and carried on with my cartoons.

Since I was pretty sure I was going to go blind at some point I would look around and try to memorize my surroundings. The clouds, my street, my home, my family.

I had no idea what I was going to do if my mom rearranged the furniture, but such are the silent worries of overly cerebral 11 year olds.

When my husband decided to get the same surgery a few years ago his excited, “So! Are you going to get yours done?” was met by my horrified, “Uh, no absolutely no, no way. No.”

I had spent the better part of my adolescence actively avoiding things that could possibly exacerbate the decline of my eye sight, I wasn’t about to invite the possibility of injury by laying myself out, wide-eyed and proclaiming, “Go ahead! Give ‘er a slice!”

(Okay, gross. Sorry! Too far, I went too far with that last one. Yuck.)

But, I am older and more reasonable now (sort of)? I would rather my eyesight decline from 202/20 as I get older than no-I-don’t-know-how-many-fingers-you-are-holding-up.

And it will be *really* nice to be able to read the clock when I wake up in the morning. And not have to check and re-check and re-check that I brought my glasses when we go on a trip (I’ve forgotten them before! It’s the worst!). And not having to deal with random hairs getting caught in my contacts (it’s pretty gross and it happens).

So, I’m doing it. I. Am. Doing. It. Yessir. We are going ahead and I am all kinds of jazzed. Yes I am, for sure.

I also might be a wee bit nervous.

But mostly jazzed!

Please feel free to reassure me! **No horror stories please, this is happening!**

Join me on Instagram for all the laser eye surgery fun!

I hear I get some kind of drug that is going to make me super mellow for the surgery, so that should be neat!

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I am conducting an experiment: I have challenged myself to try something new each month in 2022. Here are my (self imposed) rules. Let me know if you have ideas on fun/ interesting/ novel things I could try in the comments.

Or join me, that would be even more lovely actually…