You should have seen the smile on his face.  Matt Hahn, sales executive extraordinaire for BOB 94.9, had his all-laser LASIK procedure performed on him last night, exactly three months after I had mine.  In the weeks leading up to his surgery, we talked a bunch of times about what he could expect.  And as well as the Memorial Eye staff can prep you and take you step-by-step through it beforehand, I think you'll agree that hearing it from someone who's been there is a really valuable perspective.

Due to the snow and the fact that I don't get out of work until 6pm (if I'm lucky), I arrived a little late.  I missed Matt's pre-game Q&A, and he had already had his corneal flaps created by the Intralase machine.  So we were in sort of an intermission.

Michael Parks was already there, and he motioned me to sit down next to him.  It was, as always, great to see him outside of work.  He's one of the bigger reasons I was able to get LASIK.  Anyway, we were asked to sit up front during the intermission Q&A session so that we could help Dr. Chotiner answer some questions from the crowd.  Amazingly, I knew a few of the answers because I'd done a whole bunch of homework on refractive eye surgery leading up to my own procedure.

I then raised my hand and asked a question of Dr. Chotiner, about the difference between a place such as Memorial Eye and a leading franchised LASIK provider with locations around the country.  Ever loquacious, Dr. C. made a convincing case to do something rather obvious:  study up, shop around, but remember that trusting your eyes to a surgeon who shows up at work, does LASIK procedures all day, then goes back home is certainly not the same as the kind of patient care you get from a 30-year veteran in the eye surgery game whose clinic has a national reputation of excellence.  Since a friend of mine is considering LASIK from a "mall clinic", it was important to me that the forum attendees be similarly informed.  We only get two eyes.

Shortly thereafter, Dr. C. went back into the laser suite and performed the procedure on Matt.  I have never seen eye surgery before, so while I could see the laser-created incision in the outside of Matt's cornea, and I knew exactly what was coming, I couldn't help but flinch a bit as I actually watched the thin flaps of tissue being lifted.  Of course, I'm the guy who couldn't stomach the thought of using contact lenses.  One of the women at the forum had a huge smile on her face as she watched my reaction to the images on the screen.

Dr. Chotiner explained every step to the room, just as he did with me, and I'm sure it was reassuring for Matt to hear the voice.  It was a few seconds on the first eye, the flap was replaced, hydrated, smoothed out, everything just so.  The second eye was taken care of, and just like that, it was over.

Matt gave a big thumbs up, read the time on the clock, and then came into the room.  He, of course, had the sandy feeling and the world looked hazy at first, but he had yet to take his nap.  Once that was done, things would look incredible for him, just like it did for me.

The next day we spoke on the phone, and he thanked me for coming to his surgery.  For me, it was great.  I got to see the doctors and nurses again, which is great.  But he sounded so jazzed to not have to mess with contacts anymore.  Right now he's at 20/15, which is phenomenal, considering he was pretty much as nearsighted as I was before my LASIK.

So keep listening, you'll hear Matt and I talking about how we're doing with our newly-corrected eyesight, and pretty soon Matt will have his own blog.

He's so grateful to the whole staff, and it inspired me to once again send my thanks to Dr. Chotiner, Dr. Chotiner The Younger, Dr. Kowalski, Dr. Silvetti, Jill and the incredible nurses (most of whose names I didn't get, otherwise I'd give 'em a shout here), Carla and Erin (the wizards of the cameras), Keith, and everyone else who treated me just as well as they treated Matt.  Just the best.

Let's face it:  LASIK is a miracle of medical technology.  The very idea of using a laser to reshape corneal tissue is so far beyond my ability to comprehend, it's not even funny.  And while the results are quick, they're not as instant as you might initially think.  Lucky for me, my friends who've had this procedure didn't sugar-coat it for me (too much).

The initial haze wore off pretty quickly after I took a nap the night of my surgery, which meant it was time to begin a fairly involved regimen of eyedrop post-op treatment.  Three different types of drops (Zymar, Acular, and Pred Forte -- all of which could have been names of characters in "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy"), several times a day.  I actually had to make a chart schedule to keep it straight.  I mean, I was absolutely consumed with keeping to my schedule.  And artificial tears every hour.

I'm pretty sure I'm addicted to artificial tears.  For normal use, I use Refresh Plus, and if I need a little extra juice, I'll whip out the Systane, which is a little bit thicker and coats the eye surface a bit more.  Sort of like high-test drops.  Once upon a time, I had never instilled a single drop of anything into my eye.  I'm now a pro.  There are days when I'm practically using the tears every 10 minutes, sometimes I'll go two hours and not feel the need.

The reason being, my vision is fluctuating.  Dr. Kowalski from Memorial Eye Institute talked to Jen and me for a while before my surgery, and he went through what I'm going through now:  one eye is healing faster than the other.  Which means one eye is usually crystal-clear sharp (usually my left) and the other is just the slightest bit blurry.  This makes focusing a real joy, let me tell you.  But my followup visits have all been perfect, the gang at Memorial Eye is very happy with how my eyes look, and basically, that's good enough for me.  After all, they know a bit more about it than I do.

But three weeks later, I'm still seeing great, and I'm looking forward to my one-month exam, where I can once again pester the Memorial Eye gang with my special brand of stupid questions.  I'll let you know how it goes!