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Laser Eye Surgery
(don't forget to read the caveats!)

I have worn glasses since the fourth grade, and contact lenses since I was 19 or so. Contacts and glasses are a real pain in the ass when you are driving on the track, because:

  1. You have to usually wake up early for the track events and drive to the track, so your eyes are real tired and bloodshot
  2. Tracks are usually dry and dusty, which dries out your eyes and contact lenses
  3. When you are driving fast, all that air is hitting your eyes, which dries them out even more

The Solution???? Get that laser eye surgery stuff done. I got the PRK surgery about 18 months ago or so. That is the laser eye surgery where they burn off parts of your cornea/lens so it curves correctly. There is also the Lasik laser eye surgery, where they cut the flap of your eye, shoot the laser into it, and then put the flap back. PRK is more painful after the fact(like 3 hours after the surgery, the actual surgery itself is relatively painless), since they have to scrape some stuff off the surface of your lens. Lasik involves some cutting, so some say it is a little more risky, but recovery is much faster and less painful. My vision was around 20/400 prior to surgery, and now I am 20/20 in one eye, and 20/15 in the other eye. I knew about four people that had the surgery prior to me getting it done. Since then, I know about seven other friends that have had it done with great success. Regarding the pain: I was in severe pain for 24 hours after the surgery(eyes watering, any light at all hurts your eyes, etc.) and then it gradually went away until 3 days later I could start seeing better and better each day. The actual burning of tissue in your eye does not hurt, it is kinda like looking at a blinking flashlight. After the anesthesia wears off(couple hours after surgery), make sure you have pain killers available, or else it will feel like someone is sticking acupuncture needles into your eye. I was stupid enough to think that I was a stud, and would not need the pain killers. Until we walked into a supermarket after the surgery, and when I walked down the ice cream aisle, I felt the cold air hit my eyeballs like 10,000 icicles piercing my cornea. Then I realized I needed painkillers FAST.

Think about this: Someone actually figured out that they could use a laser beam to vaporize part of your cornea and get it to bend at the correct angle without any side effects. How the hell did they think of that??? How did they experiment? Who was the first guinea pig? Most of us have problems just getting our damn computers to boot up correctly, and here these other people are using computers to burn microns of tissue on your eyeball to get the right curvature of your lens.

Wayne also had the surgery done. He said if he had 10 million dollars, it would be worth 1 million dollars to have the operation done, because his life is so much easier that he can see all the time.

The guy that did my surgery is Dr. Farley, in Newport Beach. He is a cornea surgeon, so he isn’t just some dude off the street pointing a laser at your eyes.  Highly recommended.  He doesn't suck!

Update, Sept 30, 2000
Three years later, my vision is 20/20!!!