Day 22

I just came back from my third checkup today and things are apparently progressing very well.

For a short recap of relevant events, about a week ago I started experiencing the "ghosting" effect that everyone at the eye clinic warned me about. For me it was more like double vision; I would see some text (say, a sign) and right above that text would be a pretty clear, relatively solid copy of that text. Both eyes experienced this, but it was more severe for the left eye than the right eye. I asked the technician who was helping me why it happened and he explained that some slight astigmatism can occur while healing progresses.

Other than that, I've had relatively little pain as healing has occurred. A few times, I've woken up with that terrible feeling like my epithelium had started healing to my eyelid and opening my eye felt, at first, like ripping skin and then like burning onions. But this was likely also because of dryness since I'm moving from using Flarex, an anti-inflammatory drop, four times a day to two times a day. Lessening the Flarex use is also apparently important because the drops tend to thin out the layers of re-growing epithelium, so Dr. Manche also told me that healing should progress much faster as I slow and eventually stop using these specific drops altogether.

At the moment, I'm seeing at around 20/30 in both eyes, though my left eye is still lagging behind my right in terms of healing. As Dr. Manche explained, there are five layers of epithelium that need to be healed and each takes around 6-8 days to do so, but since they grow towards the middle of the eye from the sides of the abrasion that is made during the procedure, when they meed in the middle there tends to be some wrinkling or buckling (the example he used is like the meeting of tectonic plates). I was told that these deformities will correct themselves once the epithelium layers are completely healed, so during those days I'll be able to see marked changes in the clarity of my vision from day to day.

Other than this, there doesn't seem to be any news to report! No dryness, except once or twice. No more pain. My vision is already good enough to drive and getting better day by day. Hopefully things continue to progress quickly and positively!

Day 6

Today, I had my bandage contacts removed! While there's no difference in my vision (everything is still blurry), Dr. Manche assured me that this week was going to be the worst as far as blurriness goes. I went to my last class of the quarter today despite not being able to see very much (you'd be surprised how nerve-wracking it is to navigate public transportation when everyone and everything is a blur) and had the interesting experience of an in-class debate where I couldn't discern the facial expressions of my professor or any of my class members. You would think that would make it easier for me to say what I think, but I'm realizing that I'm very dependent on other peoples' facial cues when I'm communicating with them. I've also had a few friends walking in on me trying to use the computer--face super close to the screen and text ballooned up to enormous sizes--and that's earned me a laugh or two. I've also had the absolute joy of explaining to one of my professors that I need her to print off a special copy of the final for me where everything is in 18 pt font so that I don't have to strain so much to get through it. But after that last exam on June 4th, I'm totally done! Working my ass off to finish my thesis before the procedure was definitely the way to go.

I'm still feeling every now and then like I have something stuck in my eye but otherwise the pain is gone. It might also be worth mentioning that while Dr. Manche told me that these contacts were meant especially to hold on tightly to your eye--thus, the "bandage" aspect--I didn't actually end up feeling a difference between these and the regular contacts I wore throughout middle school and sporadically from high school on, which is probably the same reason why I stopped wearing them in the first place. I'm not sure if a pain scale rating is relevant anymore though, and I wish we had some kind of established scale for blurriness that I could actually measure at home so I could track that as well, though even that might not be sufficient. Even as I'm blinking and typing this entry, one blink will show clear[er] text and the next blink, everything will be fuzzy again.

I just have to keep telling myself that it's the worst week! Everything after this will be easy!