Doctors with Lasers

Last January, I resolved to get rid of a severe inconvenience that plagued me since 3rd grade . . . the need for eyeglasses. In standard terms, with 20/20 being considered perfect eyesight, mine scaled beyond the 20/200 mark. I couldn't read a book title in my hands without glasses!

Like many problems, you learn to live with it, but my latest expenditure at Lenscrafters really got under my skin. Since I live a very active lifestyle, I resolved to get the strongest lenses and frames available in January 2009. After 400 bucks, I had a pair of heat treated titanium frames with shatter resistant, scratch resistant, glare resistant lenses. I figured nothing could get the best of this eye wear. They were junk within nine months!

So, I paid Dr. MacRae a visit at University of Rochester's Flaum Eye Institute. After two concurrent eye exams, the standard "Danger Speech," and my grilling to get the most information short of observing the procedure out of these physicians, I forked over my credit card, and said my goodbyes to 17th century corrective doctrine.


With the help of some Valium, I slept for 18 hours after the surgery. The following handful of weeks were ailed with frequent problems of focusing on a close object after focusing far away. Now, it is four months after surgery, and I have 20/15 vision . . . better than what is considered perfect vision! It was expensive, but no problems with hassling around every morning, looking for my glasses. No more tearing out eyelashes while forcing my eyelids open to accept a new contact lens. None of that crap!

Which is good, because in my line of work it's better to not have to bother with glasses, especially when I'm playing in the snow, 250 miles away from the nearest supplier of saline solution, and digging a snow shelter into the Greenland ice cap that I would call home for a few days. So in conclusion, if you hate your glasses, find one of these Lasik centres.