The Continuing Saga of RK, PRK, or LASIK: My Experience with One of These Eye Surgeries

Okay, now it's a year later. Being conservative in all things, I reined myself back from scheduling the second eye surgery before the first one healed completely. Recovery during that year was entirely uneventful, although a significant annoyance earned my attention instead.

The real pain in the neck, as it were, remained the need to wear a contact lens in the other eye. That lens was required to be soft, so the eye could relax and take its natural shape over several months. The doctor explained that my usual hard contact lens would flatten the cornea, causing an incorrect measurement that could potentially result in an overcorrection at surgery. No one wanted that.

I suffered for a year with that annoying soft lens in one eye. Talk about yin-yang vision: the post-surgery eye was 20/20; the pre-surgery eye was hopelessly nearsighted; together, my vision was a train wreck and gave me a year-long headache. Let me get back to that good doctor to get my vision in both eyes back to some kind of normalcy. (Detect a little annoyance? My risk aversion said waiting a year was a wise decision. The eyesight annoyances told me otherwise. They went on for a year, but I chose to live with my choice. Some might call that stubborn.)

LASIK, as a new surgery, was being introduced at the time. In this procedure, the cornea is incised, cut laterally like a disk, then flipped over, exposing the inner cornea for reshaping as in PRK. Notice, there's cutting. This detail did not escape me. I had shunned RK for the cutting. I would shun the newer LASIK procedure for the cutting too. No cutting for me. I signed up for my second PRK.

Now, I'm at the doctor's office ready for my second laser surgery. No warm welcome from the staff, no Diet Coke, no Valium this time, and a wait in a packed waiting room for the surgeries scheduled before mine. No comfortable seat; standing room only. "Having your eye done today?" "Yes, both." My waiting-room neighbor announced with conviction that the good doctor was now doing two eyes at the same time. No year-long wait between procedures for anybody in the room besides me. And the doctor is no longer singing Italian tunes, although thankfully, he personally performed the one-minute surgery, albeit silently. Clearly, word of his successful eye surgeries had gotten out, and everyone lined up for theirs, two at a time, hold the Coke, Valium, and Italian songs.

My immediate vision upon rising from the chair was a bit more blurry than the first. Uh oh. But this was absolutely intentional, as the doctor gave me "monovision." Corrected to something around 20/40, this eye would go longer for close vision and put off the need for reading glasses in that eye for awhile. My brain would use my 20/20 eye for distance and my 20/40 eye for reading, giving me both capabilities. I still need reading glasses now, but ones not nearly as strong. And I still marvel at the brilliant design of the two surgeries that optimized my visual outcomes.

The doctor gained a reputation for successful laser surgeries up and down the East Coast. No doubt he subsequently went on to do more LASIK, especially if that procedure delivered a superior result. Claims are that LASIK produces similar results but reduces recovery because of the built in 'bandage' of the cornea being flipped back into place.

My vision has not changed from those two days, a year apart, more than a decade ago now. The surgeries were successes, by every measure, on every account. I made a ceremony of throwing away my collection of old contact lenses, saline solutions, little plastic cases, drops, rinses, rubs, and other eye paraphernalia. I can see before getting up out of bed in the morning. No more eye crises. Quality of life took a quantum leap. And now it's me who's singing soothing Italian songs.

The doctor's son became an ophthalmologist in the same practice, and a second office specializing in laser eye surgeries opened across the Hudson in New York City. I would hear Joan Hamburg on WOR radio saying that she was considering eye surgery by this same doctor and that everybody in the radio studio was too. The doctor's quick rise to fame and reputation must account for the 'production line' surgeries he was called upon to perform. Demand for his service exploded. It was folks like me who benefited from the competence the doctor developed and the extraordinarily good results we received. And I swear I've heard Joan Hamburg humming Italian folk songs on her radio show.

I have subsequently moved far out of the area, so I'm not sure whether success continued to follow. But I'd bet on it. I'd do my PRKs all over again if I had to, with no time in between. It's my miracle.