Among all the senses, vision is the most indispensable,” I recited from the flyer-sized card the lady in the lab coat handed me.
Printed in micro-font, it was followed by a few paragraphs that went over the many reasons a healthy pair of eyes meant a better quality of life. Yet that first line was enough to remind me that without the bulky, lens-slipped frame over my eyes, the text would have resembled a trail of fuzzy rat droppings.
It made no sense not to agree with the fine print, considering the common sense of sight was why I’d visited the American Eye Center in the first place. “Your Vision, Our Mission,” the ophthalmic laser center’s motto read above the reception desk, and I, along with the diverse assemblage of people seated at its crowded waiting area, hoped that such would be accomplished. Positive tension stretched across the room — each face, visibly anxious or elated, seeking their eyes’ restoration. That one could once again see seemed too good to be true. And as an overhead digital display unceasingly called upon each candidate for consultation or treatment, it was as if everyone here was stepping from a sort of limbo into another dimension.
Jeepers Peepers
After undergoing a marathon screening process involving six hefty machines, my eyes were wide with anxiety. I’d goggled a sci-fi sweep of black-and-white pinwheels, fluorescent-blue lights, and concentrated air puffs — each scanning, mapping, or examining my peepers — to determine whether my corneas (they’re the gelatinous panes to the “windows of the soul”) could handle the strain of the surgery.
LASIK (in medical gibberish, that’s laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis) is refractive laser eye surgery that involves the temporary filleting of your cornea for a red-hot laser to fire through and reshape the sucker. Nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism — if what you’re looking at is obscured in some way, it’s got something to do with the front of your eyeball losing its curvature. Laser eye surgery’s job is to get those eyeballs to bounce with vision again and turn that eye grade into a clear-sighted 20/20.
Still, this was definitely no trip to the barber, where hair could simply grow out if a cut was half-assed. These are your eyes, damn it, and the major measures taken by the center ensured I wouldn’t rise from the operating table with a horror story of hemorrhaged or eternally sandy eyes, like I’d read about in a GQ article identifying post-surgery complications a couple of years back. Since it was established in 1995, however, the American Eye Center has had no seeing-eye casualties. Clearly, no matter how much the Center resembled a telecom hub with its ceaseless inflow of people, not everyone could be served.
A good two hours had passed since I’d entered the optical outpost, and after being led into another room, I went through several pattern-distinguishing, image clarity, and reading tests that would determine my eye grade. Finally, the lights had been switched off, and through the tunnels of yet another machine, the optometrist stared deep into my eyes once more. I hadn’t been as excited in such an intimate dark room scenario before. Especially after the good eye doctor informed me that the 400-strong grade in both my eyes was within the bracket of permanently corrective possibility. The better life I wanted to lead was now in sight.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
I’d gone bare-eyed for five days — no contact lenses for a period of time before LASIK — when my scheduled V-Day (vision, baby) arrived. Once again, my all-too-eager eyes were inspected for surgical safeguarding, and when the eye M.D. gave the thumbs up, my laser quest was soon to be realized.
There were five other bespectacled patients in the frigid pre-operation room, with a tiny television placed in a corner beaming CNN’s report of yet another hurricane in the US; without my glasses, the anchorman on the left side of the screen looked like the maneuverable bar in that ancient video game, Pong. The hazy news, the cold, and the same itch for normalcy that the others felt as we observed the exposed operating room, all evoked a life that I’d soon leave behind. Tomorrow morning, after a restorative sleep with a pair of anti-rub eye shields on, I would trade my past life of near-blindness for a full life of clear vision. I would be the guy that could read over shoulders. My eyes would no longer be the spastic orbs that couldn’t enjoy a full movie, lengthy conversation, or all-nighter without gooey contact lens residue forming at their corners. I could drive two hours across the highway to the beach without worrying about my contacts becoming blades of dryness. Hell, I could swim and surf at the beach without my eyes shut tight from worrying over losing a lens or two.
No Eye-rony Here
Twelve minutes was all it took for American Eye’s eye M.D. on high, Dr. Jack Arroyo Jr., to laser-blast those ‘balls and grant sight to my worn eyes. With anesthetic drops administered, the eye poke of my life was as unpleasant as putting on a nut-hugging pair of skinny jeans — quite a bit of unusual pressure, but for a good aesthetic cause, anyway. Even after the procedure, when just a smidgen of light felt like sandpaper lightly rubbing my pupils, the teary discomfort couldn’t compare to the squint-in-denial I strained myself through during my seventh-grade classes or having to get used to popping tiny plastic discs onto my blur-densome blacks. ‘Course, the P90,000 price tag was also nothing compared to those gouge-worthy daily dealings with my high-maintenance eyes, for nearly half of my 24 years.
When I awoke the next morning, it was as if the world was gazing intently at me again. Every wrinkle of gunk-daubed tissue discarded on the floor, every fold of belly fat on the half-naked Korean man in the apartment across mine, everything that came into view was no longer separated by thick glass or thin plastic. A vivid mess the world is, but from this visual standpoint, it’s all a beautiful sight to behold — especially when the eyes finally have it.
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The American Eye Center is at Level 5, Shangri-La Plaza. Phone 636-0762. Or visit www.eyecenter.com.ph.