My eyes... MY EYES!!!

They're burning. I can't take it any longer! The dryness, the rubbing, the squinting, the blinking. And the fogging of the lens when I wear a scarf! I'd rather wear a blindfold for the next week and a day... oh. I'm getting Lasik then, that's why. I'm excited and I'm terrified all at once. I've never had any sort of surgery, ever. Never broken a bone. I've only been a patient in the ER twice; once when I was three and stuck a raisin up my nose -- my Mom loves to tell this story to anyone who will listen, and she always asks me if I remember it in general, then she'll go into the specifics... as a child I was attached to her at the hip; she was sick with the flu in the bathroom, I was sitting next to her in my little red director's chair, eating raisins... the moment of silence, she looks over, I have a perplexed look on my face and a finger about to re-enter my nostril, "Look, Mommy! I put a raisin up my nose and I can't get it out!" I was a proud child with proper diction and occasionally a pretend British accent. She groaned and called my Aunt Diane, who's son - my cousin, Pat - had recently pulled a similar stunt with a pea. Auntie recommended that my mother flush the raisin out with saline, only problem, the raisin swelled. Off to the ER. I'm fine and dandy in the examining room until the doctor pulls out these [basically] 12" tweezers and moves in for the kill. I scream bloody murder; the nurses and my mother restrain me; the doctor removes the wrinkly, swollen culprit. I'm all smiles, and I wander around the waiting room introducing myself to everyone, recounting my harrowing encounter with a California raisin. The next day at breakfast I put a Rice Krispie up my nose and tell my mom. She didn't bat an eye, "Back to the Emergency Room!" and I snorted that sucker out! She loves telling that story. Second time I went to the ER, I didn't even get to enjoy it - ambulance ride and everything; thanks bad vodka decisions of freshman year - but woke up the next day to an IVed arm, a sore throat/stomach, and a raging headache... at least I got to hear the stories later... a bush, slurred apologies, a chalk outline, fire trucks, and "How 'bout those Cubs!?" hilarity. I digress!

The Lasik. So, I normally wear contacts; I started wearing glasses when I was 10 and as four eyes weren't the coolest thing in a new school, I made the switch to contacts as soon as I could - 12. Since I primarily wear contacts, I don't always update my glasses - dollars, laziness, y'know - and thus resulting in my glasses prescription being over four years old and severely outdated... like probably 20/350ish and I'm now well into the 20/600 (for those of you who don't understand the 20/20 scale - I myself just found out a few months ago - it means that I have to stand 20 feet away from something that someone else can see from 600 feet away - HOLY SHIT!! Bad eyes! Yeah. Right!?) range... which wouldn't normally be a thang, but as I'm having to wear them everyday I worry that they'll strain my eyes and I'll be permanently destroyed - BLIND! - or I won't be able to get the Lasik, or even worse still, have to update my lens right before I never have to use them ever again (will they pay for temporary lens? You'd think they would given the price of the whole shebang). 'Scrazy! I'm calling the doctor today, after lunch... I am! Seriously, lay off me - I'll probably do it tomorrow.

Anyway, despite all my fears of the procedure: What if I blink? What if my eyes move? Are they going to put needles in my eyes? (I don't think so.) How will they keep them from moving? What if the shot paralyzes my vision? What if they blind me? What if they laser my face? What if, what if... I wonder. Because the Lasik is a gift from my Aunt Sandy, I'll go through with it, as she said I can only use the money towards this and not running away to Europe - she called me out on that before I could even bring it up. I'm really excited to see what it's like to wake up in the middle of the night and be able to read that I have x more hours of shut-eye before having to go to work, WITHOUT patting my hands against the nightstand to find my glasses. That'll be neat, huh? And having better than perfect vision, and maybe I'll have X-Ray vision, maybe that'll be the only side affect... then I wouldn't have to worry about getting a job, because the hospital would hire me right away and I'd make bank. NEAT! And talking about all that made me think of this; maybe it's like that Val Kilmer movie that I never saw, along with the rest of the world.