After about a 2 1/2 hour appointment and 11 hours of blissful Ambien-induced sleep, here I am at midnight writing up my thoughts.
When I made the decision to get Lasik, I didn't know where I wanted to go but I knew where I didn't want to go. There was no way I was letting this guy anywhere near my eyes:
I'm sorry but the last thing you want when picking a doctor to take a laser to your eyes is to choose someone who doesn't seem to take what he does seriously (one sidenote is that Newman seems to have changed his business' name to ABQ Lasik - probably to escape those awful commercials).
I was given several glowing referrals for Dr. Stephen Coleman. A referral gets you as far as the phone call and the door - it's the staff that gets you and keeps you there. And there was not one minute of any of my interactions that didn't show me that their staff wanted me to be a customer and patient.
For part of the pre-appointment consultation, you are given this little audio transmitter to take a tour of numbered areas of the office. Multiple tracks focus on his wall of celebrity photos of who he's treated. There were many local reporters, some athletes and even Stiffler from American Pie. But what I found more impressive than the stars on the wall were the binders of letters from happy patients. There had to be 20 of them placed around the office, and to me, those spoke much louder and stronger than the celebrity wall.
I had originally gone through the process back in the spring and scheduled the procedure, but I had it scheduled for about five days before we left for Hawaii. I just didn't feel like it was a good idea to do something this major right before such a big trip and postponed it.
I went back and forth on actually re-scheduling the appointment after Brian lost his job, but I finally decided to just go ahead with it. I figured we could make some sacrifices here and there to do something I knew would make such a big difference in my life.
At my pre-surgery consult the day before, I told Dr. Coleman how I was feeling and that I was having some crazy "Clockwork Orange"-type nightmares like this:
but he said the surgery is usually far more anti-climactic, which was good to hear. I looked forward to proving him right.
Surgery morning was finally upon me, and I was a little nervous but not too bad. I took a prescribed Xanax half an hour before my appointment and was feeling sufficiently mushy. I made the mistake of having a diet coke and began to feel it was reducing my mush-factor so I had them give me a second dose. Then it was my turn.
To say this is an assembly line would diminish what they do, but I will say that they have this system down pat. Brian talked with the staff and they do approximately 12 procedures on surgery day.
When you get into the waiting room, you see groups of people sitting around in big comfy chairs. In each group, one person looks like they are feeling nice and settled and the other just waiting to drive them home. Then one by one they are called into the pre-op room where anti-bac drops and numbing drops are administered. Dr. Coleman introduces himself to whoever is with you and then you're whisked away and through the door to where the magic takes place.
It was my turn. I got my hairnet placed and it was time to roll (and yes, that is a Fraggle Rock shirt I'm sporting).
That's Dr. Coleman, or as I'm going to call him, "the Magic Man" sitting off to the left:
10 minutes later it's all over. I cuddled in a big, comfy chair for a bit, had my check up and then was sent home. 11 wonderful hours of sleep later, here I am seeing fine and so happy about the decision. If anyone is considering Lasik, I can't recommend Dr. Coleman enough.
Checkup Update
The morning after my surgery, I had a post-surgery checkup and now I'm seeing....
wait for it....
20/15!
My eyes are a little dry at times, but it's nothing that some eyedrops can't fix. This was a great decision, and it's so amazing to know that the next time I get my driver's license renewed, it'll be the first time I ever had one that doesn't say "requires corrective lenses."
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