Category Archives: medical

LASIK Update – A Bump in the Road

This morning I had a followup appointment with my eye doctor. He had noticed some minor stria (stretching) in the flap in my right cornea in my exam last week and wanted to see how that was healing.

So the good news is that my vision in both eyes right now is 20/30. The bad news is that it should be better than that. My left (dominant) eye is healing perfectly and objectively everything looks great. The doctor is somewhat mystified why my vision is not better in that eye, but we agreed to let it continue to heal and see if it improves over time.

My right eye is definitely weaker than my left, and the doctor is further concerned that the stria could be affecting my vision there. I left with instructions to up the antibiotic eyedrops I’ve been using from twice a day to four times a day. On Wednesday I will go back to his office and he will lift and reset the flap in my right cornea, a quick office procedure, I’m told.

I’m not really happy about these issues, but I want to stress that my vision is still pretty good and I’m not having any second thoughts about the surgery. The human body is a fantastically complex system, and the process of “damaging” that system and allowing it to recover (heal) is not a sure process. Both my doctor and I believe that my vision will continue to improve; in fact, he mentioned that he feels that the aforementioned presbyopia we thought was imminent may have been pushed back by several years due to the surgery.

Fun times, but that’s the way it goes. More updates as warranted…

LASIK + 7 Days: A Status Report

Seven days ago I underwent LASIK surgery. Here is an update on how things have gone since. (A report of my initial experiences can be found here.)

I wisely chose to spend most of last weekend indoors. Although I’m not having a lot of light sensitivity, I decided to err on the side of caution. I picked up a pair of cheap wraparound sunglasses from Amazon and those served me reasonably well when I ventured out to walk Buddy. For the most part, though, I stayed inside and took it easy.

On Monday I returned to the doctor’s office for a checkup again, as my distance vision had been good, but not quite where it should be on the Friday before. This was much better. Interestingly, although things were a trifle blurry when I covered one eye and tried to read the smaller print on the eye chart, when a diffraction grid (piece of plastic was many small pinholes) was placed over my eye, everything snapped into focus nicely. This is how the doctor differentiates between problems due to an inaccurate prescription cu into the corneal flap and deficiencies due to the eye needing to heal more. In this case, my prescription is perfect, my eye just needs more healing time.

At work, things have been pretty good. I haven’t had to expand fonts or zoom in on documents. I have a 22″ monitor that I have about 18″ away from my face right now (I’ll be moving that back as things progress). My 14″ laptop screen is about 30″ away from my face and I need to lean in to read that still. My friend Jet had an excellent suggestion, though – once an hour (or so) I try to turn my attention away from the computer and let my eyes relax some – walk to the bathroom, get a drink of water, or just close my eyes for a few minutes.

The other thing that I’ve noticed is that I am definitely having “good eye days” and “bad eye days,” as demonstrated by my consumption of eye drops. My doctor has been kind enough to supply me with 30 boxes of Refresh Optive eye drops (each box contains 5 plastic vials, and each vial is good for about 3 uses). On a “bad day” I’ve found that I may go through 10 vials, applying drops every 15-20 minutes. On a “good day” I’ll use half of that. Because the free samples will only last so long, I have ordered a couple of bottles of Systane Ultra eye drops from Amazon. The price is a little less than the Refresh Optive, but from my research it appears that Systane is slightly better at relieving dry eyes. I expect to continue to have good and bad days for the next 4-6 weeks, but it’s a minor annoyance compared to the overall improvement of vision I have after the surgery.

One thing I haven’t mentioned is the eye guard that I’ve had to wear each night while I sleep. Imagine something like goggles, held on by an elastic strap that goes over your head. For the last week I’ve slept rather poorly because this guard tends move around on my face and requires re-seating every so often. It’s been a minor annoyance, but nothing debilitating. The good news is that I only have to use that for a week, so tonight will be the last night with it, and then I’ll be done.

The purpose of the eye guard, of course, is to prevent you from rubbing your eyes while you sleep. I had a heart stopping moment a few days ago when I woke up, removed the eye guard, and rubbed my eyes. Waaaaugh! Fortunately, there was no harm done, but man that is an unpleasant way to wake up! It just goes to show that you have to think about what you’re doing whenever your hands go near your eyes, even if you’re only half-awake!

I have another follow-up appointment with the eye doctor on Monday, and I’m expecting to see even more improvements then. I’ll be sure to post more updates as time goes on!

Tom’s Big LASIK Adventure

Or, “How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Laser”

About 65 hours ago from when I started writing this post, my vision changed rather radically. Some backstory first:

I started wearing glasses when I was three years old. For the last 41 years I’ve always worn glasses of one kind or another, save for a stint of about a week in my mid-20’s when I attempted to wear contacts…and failed. I never mastered that whole “putting your finger in your eye” thing, unfortunately. I wouldn’t say I’m phobic about things touching my eyes, but I am certainly extremely uncomfortable about it. I don’t know what my vision was without my glasses specifically, but I was very nearsighted – anything more than 18″ away was a blur, and after six feet it was just hazy, indistinct shapes.

About five years ago, Dan and I started talking about LASIK for me, first as a 40th birthday thing, then as an ongoing possibility as we got our finances in order. This year we finally decided to pull the trigger.

Continue reading →

Labor Day Weekend Wrapup

What didn’t we do last weekend? Well, we didn’t drive any great distance, or fly, or deal with hordes of people. We opted instead for a quieter (and less expensive!) approach to the holiday. As my previous short posts hinted, the weekend had its ups and downs, but it all worked out well in the end.

After work on Friday, we did some quick cleaning around the house in preparation for the weekend’s company, then grabbed dinner at Scott Dogs and did a bit of shopping at Sam’s Club and Garden Fresh Market.

On Saturday, following a trip back to the podiatrist, who did things that not everyone may be interested in reading about

Friends, Flooding and Furniture

Ugh. It appears that both takaza and I were afflicted with insomnia last night, during different parts of the night. That make for slow canines this morning!

The weekend was quite entertaining, for all that it started inauspiciously. On Saturday morning I had to make another visit to my podiatrist (cut for those not interested in medical details)

Episode #14,422 of Duncan’s Exciting Life

Midweek updates are always so boring, but hey, what the heck.

I’ve been updating the Midwest FurFest registration database over the last few days, and I should be sending out the next batch of confirmation postcards in the next day or so. The dribs and drabs of online registrations have become a steady trickle, one that will steadily increase until the end-of-September cheap preregistration deadline, then it’ll stay steady for the next month and a half until only registration ends. Our numbers are looking good still; a healthy amount of growth, but nothing to cause me to freak out. Yet. We’ll see 🙂

Takaza is off in Indiana this week, crunching numbers in the heart of Da Region until at least tomorrow. Last night was pretty quiet. I watched some TV while making a quick dinner, then ran some errands before coming home and heading to bed early. After work today, I figure I’m going to change into some more comfy clothes (and get these damn shoes off) and wander around the Grayslake Farmer’s Market. My goal is to see if I can find enough interesting fresh stuff to put together a meal from. We’ll see how successful I am.

As for my toe, it’s healing up as fast as I’d hoped. After gimping around badly yesterday (enough that the limp was causing muscle pain in that leg), I’m able to walk a bit more normally today, albeit somewhat slower than usual. Walking in my Birkenstock sandals is MUCH easier and less painful, but since I work in a manufacturing environment that’s not really an option during the day.

As for other hot-button topics flying around LiveJournal these days, I’ve been thinking of a valuable piece of advice I received many years ago: “A closed mouth gathers no foot.” I suspect I’ll be heeding that for the foreseeable future.

So. Looking ahead to the next few weekends, we have Indian food on Friday, LAFF softball on Saturday (no idea what’s up afterwards, but I suppose I’ll think of something), then…something on Sunday. I don’t think we have any plans right now, but that can change. And next weekend: for the first time in years, I’m actually going to skipping Irishfest in favor of the Chicago Air and Water Show. Should be fun!

Weekend Recap Before I Forget Completely

Right. So. the weekend that was.

Takaza had taken a half day off from work so that he could meet up with linnaeus and they could go to see a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field. Well, sort of at Wrigley Field; they were actually across the street in pretty posh digs. This meant that they were in the city by the end of the afternoon. I was itching to do something, as was nymphara, so we all agreed to meet up in Vernon Hills. We walked around Barnes and Noble and the game store at Hawthorn Mall for a bit, then decided to head north for dinner, eventually winding up at Lovely Thai. I liked my entree a lot more this time, a barbecued-pork-and-vegetable noodle dish, and the company was excellent. Sadly, although we’d talked about playing some games afterwards, by the end of dinner we were all too tired and everyone tottered off home.

I had big plans for Saturday, a nice list of all the things I wanted to get done around the house. Unfortunately, a darned ingrown toenail got in the way. I had to go to a podiatrist in the morning, and he cut away about a quart-inch of nail along the side of my right big toe. It was of course numbed all to heck and didn’t hurt a bit, and only took about three minutes. The bad news is that I had to spend the rest of the day staying off of it and keeping my foot elevated. We watched a lot of TiVo on Saturday 🙂

On Sunday, after a rough night (aided by a bit of Tylenol 3), I gambled a bit on how much I could walk and how far. We went to cheer on invncble at the Blackwolves game against the Madison Thunder – and the Blackwolves won! It was fun to hang out with datahawk and her mom and RC, as well as jimcyl and perro and darkwolph. Alas, my foot was hurting and Dan had a ton of work to do, so we had to pass on the reception and Wolves game afterwards, but I hope everyone had fun!

And here we are back in the work week. I’m gimping around a good bit still, pumped up full of antibiotics and trying to stay off my foot (and failing). I’m hoping that things should be back to normal by the coming weekend, though.

Snow, Doctors and Weekend

Great fun here yesterday, as we got five or six inches of wet, heavy snow. This caused numerous blackouts in the area as tree limbs started falling on power lines, but nothing too bad. It played heck with a lot of people’s commutes, even doubling the length of my commute! ‘Course, since it only takes me five minutes to get to work, I don’t expect a lot of sympathy.

It’s been a boring week so far; not a whole lot going on at work, and evenings have been quiet. Just for a change of pace, I’ll be heading down to the doctor’s office after work today to have an ingrown toenail looked at (right there with ya, rustitobuck!). It’s gotten bad enough that it’s making me limp a bit and the pain is waking me up at night, so yeah – time to see what can be done. This will probably be my last visit to this doctor – while she was convenient to my last job, that’s no longer the case. Her office is a good half-hour away (and 45-60 minutes back, with traffic). Couple this with the fact that what used to be a small office with a receptionist, one nurse, and one doctor, all of whom knew you by name (and I their names) and were all quite friendly, has suddenly grown to a three-doctor practice with multiple support staff. I understand the economics of it, but it’s like I’m going from being a valued patient whose history the doctor knew without looking at the chart to just a another insurance claim to be filed. Time to check with Aetna and see what doctors are on their plan in the Round Lake/Grayslake area.

Meanwhile, it looks like I’ll be doing some work around the house this weekend, finally getting the bathtub in the master bath unclogged, and probably pull the elbows from under the kitchen sink and clean those (oh, those are gonna be gross) as well as doing some house cleaning. On Sunday, it appears we’ll be seeing some hockey with friends, which is always fun as well.

Time to go grab a soda, I think…