Today, I had LASIK performed on my eyes, for a fair price of $3600 dollars. This is near the upper end of the spectrum of cost, but you only get one pair of eyes so you should find the best surgeon you can. The following is a time line diary of events.

8:00: I woke up and proceeded with my usual routine of showering, brushing my teeth and getting dressed. I didn't bother to shave. I don't think anyone minded.

9:00: I made sure my paper work and consent forms were filled properly and that I knew precisely where the location was.

10:00: My friend Lynette shows up to take me to and from the appointment. I make her fill out the witness portion of my consent form and I put the prerequisite drops in my eyes. 4 drops of Vigamox followed by 4 drops of Lotemax in each eye. (I had purchased them at the pharmacy earlier in the week at a cost of approximately $50 after insurance.) We leave my house at approximately 10:20, she drives slow, we arrive at 10:45.

10:45: We arrive and I sign in at the front desk. They give me a Valium which makes me a little drowsy, but I tend to be drug resistant and it essentially wears off in 30 minutes.

11:15: They call my name and proceed to do a few tests to re-measure my corneas, my eye sight prescriptions, curvature, size, etc. This process takes about 20-30 minutes. They take me into another room, where I then get a review of the procedure, what will happen, and I speak to the attending doctor who takes some sort of device and puts it near my eye to measure the corneas again, which doesn't hurt or cause pain but it sends a ripple through your vision. I can only best describe it as a magnetic impulse you can see. I meet the Surgeon, Dr. Boutros, who looks nothing like his photo, and he describes the procedure from his perspective. The nurse wraps up the description and hands me a hair net (which is funny since I shave my head) and sends me back out to the waiting room while they program the machine. I return to the waiting room and wait about 20 minutes. They give me various dryness eye drops, a pain reducing eye drop, a Valium, a Tylenol 3 and some goggles for sleeping for after the procedure.

12:00: They call me into the surgical room and asked if I wanted the curtain open so people could watch the procedure, to which I obviously declined. They have you lie on a table and stare up at a smiley face on the ceiling. I secretly wonder if they have a sponsorship from AIM from AOL.

They pour anesthesia into my eyes, followed by water, followed by more anesthesia (or at least I believe that is the order). They then put a clamp on my left eye to hold it open, followed by a suction ring. They slide me to my left, have me stare at a yellow light, under a laser which then proceeds to zap me in the eye and create a perforation in my cornea. My vision fades to white (strangely enough they told me it would fade to black (Metallica anyone?). They then proceed to move the clamps and suction ring to my right eye and repeat the process... fade to white. With each eye, you can see them pull your cornea's lid away from your eye but you can't feel it. It's actually pretty cool to experience from a curiousity perspective. There is no pain, only a little pressure, which may or may not be slightly uncomfortable depending on your pain tolerance.

After cutting my corneas open with the IntraLASIK laser, they slide me to my right, with the clamp still on my right eye and have me stare at a red dot with an orange center. I believe this may have been the Excimer Laser at work, I am not sure. The entire flap creation and correction portion of the procedure probably only took 15 minutes. Once it is done, they then put the corneal flap back into place and rub a soft (I assume, as it was numb) gauze over it to eliminate any wrinkles or air bubbles. It looked like a squeegee on a car windshield. Your eye's natural suction holds the flap into place.

It's probably important to note that while cutting one eye, there is a gauze covering the other eye and they switch as they change, moving one gauze to catch any liquid flow and replacing the other over your eye.

Following the correction of your vision, your sight is a little hazy (think being drunk), but you're already better than you were with your glasses off.

12:30: They give me a pair of sunglasses that aren't as lame as the cataract surgery glasses and I leave The Eye Center with my friend. We grab some lunch at Wendy's, where I have the Chicken Club with a Spicy Chicken breast. She paid for lunch, which was very nice of her.

My eyes start to water, itch and burn, which isn't fun and moderately uncomfortable, but tolerable. I take the Valium they provided me and Lynette drives me home. She comments that she never realized how dark my eyes were and that she couldn't differentiate my iris from my pupil. This is true, I reply, my iris is very dark brown, near black by nature.

1:00: I get home, change my clothes, close the curtains and go to sleep. I wake up a couple times because my eyes are watering like there's a fire hydrant in my eyes, to the extent that a pool had collected in the goggles I was provided to sleep in. (Imagine your worst crying session and multiply it by two.) I don't think I'll need the dryness drops, based on that but we'll see.

4:59: Meredith calls to check on me, but I sleep through the phone without noticing. That was nice of her.

6:25: One of the doctors calls me, I don't remember her name as I was trying to sleep, to check on me. That was nice of them too, although not as nice as Meredith calling me because they got paid a lot of money in the process.

8:40: I had woken up a few times, but at 8:40 I decide to get out of bed. My vision is better and I am not as light sensitive as they said I would be, which is nice. I put in my first round of periodic eye drops, chat with my boss online and a few people on #AbleNET.

Overall, my vision is still a little hazy, but good. I expect to see much improvement by my follow-up appointment on Monday morning. At this point there is little irritation and I feel fine. It's a very liberating experience to not have to wear glasses. I think that most people, with good vision, don't realize the series of minor annoyances that come with wearing glasses or the daily precautions one needs to take. I would recommend this procedure, based on early results, to anyone that is considering it.

Over the next few weeks, I will let everyone know what my progress is with my vision. Stay tuned for more updates...