My Eyeballs

A little over a year ago my eyes were really bloodshot and I couldn't really figure out why. Long story short, it ended up being my contacts. I went to the eye doctor and he said let's try different contacts, different solutions, etc. No go. So I was stuck in my glasses.

Although my glasses are cute, I really hated them. They bug my ears, they slip off my nose, and they are just a general pain. Plus, I tend to be a paranoid person. And there was always the worst-case-scenario of, if something happened to my glasses I would be so completely screwed because I am so completely blind.

My contact prescription is negative eight, negative nine, for those of you to whom that means anything. Translation: without any contacts/glasses, I can see about two inches in front of my nose and that's it.

So. I decided I was going to look into eye surgery. I started calling around different places and I found, to my surprise, that they won't just give you a price. You have to come in and be examined so that they can give you an "accurate quote" (which is all a bunch of crap, because let me tell you that they do not personalize the quote, it's all the same number).

I already knew from my eye doctor that I wasn't a candidate for Lasik because I was so blind. I scheduled an appointment with Barnet, Dulany Perkins, because my sister got her eyes fixed there and they weren't going to charge me for the consultation. After about two hours of having weird different tests and having my pupils dilated, they finally told me I was a candidate for ICL, or implantable contact lens.

What is that? They actually stick a permanent contact lens in your eye, behind your iris, in front of your natural lens. The cost? Six grand. It's actually better than Lasik, but because it's more expensive, those who are a candidate for Lasik usually just go for the cheaper option. ICL is reversible; they are not burning your cornea. If for any reason you need the lens removed, they can do that.

Alright. I finally had what I wanted: a price. Now I had to wait. Joseph and I were buying a house, and all of our money was being squirreled away for an emergency fund (because those things are important!) and for our down payment/closing costs for our house.

Fast forward to present time. I finally have my eye-fixing money. I started talking about my procedure because I was excited, and someone told me she heard the lenses only lasted ten years.

Ten years?? That didn't even make sense. Wouldn't someone have told me about that??

So I call Barnet Dulaney Perkins and ask. After making me spell my first and last name TWICE (they can't find my history), the girl can't answer my question and says she will transfer me to someone who can. The second girl makes me spell my name again, still can't answer my question, and says she'll call me back.

She never called me back.

Well that was too bad for them because Joseph, scared about my eyes, was pushing for me to "check out other places" and if you've heard the advertisements for Schwartz, you know they do the Phoenix Suns' eyes.

Seriously, how much more of an endorsement do you need?

So I called Schwartz. Made an appointment. Liked Schwartz better. And Jay Schwartz told me (himself, because I thought I was going to get a partner doctor) that he does one eye at a time because it's safer. And he wasn't talking badly about Dulaney behind his back, because he's told it to him to his face. Risk of complication is pretty small, but he had one patient who reacted poorly to the medication, and they actually had to take the lens out, and she couldn't see out of one eye for a week. Wouldn't she have been really badly off if she couldn't have seen at all for a week?

Oh, and that whole ten-year business is some weird rumor and Schwartz laughed about it. He said he's heard all sorts of crazy stuff and he doesn't know how that got started.

I was sold. Schwartz got my business. It was going to be a little more expensive, $6400, because to do the two eyes separately is a little more cost-intensive.

This is a very long post. I didn't mean for it to be so long. It will have a part two of my surgery experiences. I just got my second eye done today so I will wait a little bit and then you can hear if I'm happy or not once the "temporary" side-effects wear off.