I do practise with a Swede, we’ll call him “The Swede”, after the character from that Clint Eastwood Classic, Heartbreak Ridge. And I saw him outside my office a few days ago, on the other side of the road.
As I waved to him from my 3rd floor viewpoint, he put this on:
And stood there, giving me a good 60 seconds to take that picture. Player.
Finally, after nearly 4 weeks of eye related sabbatical (sp? – how come this thing doesn’t have a nifty spell checker…?) I am back in the fray tomorrow. No, that doesn’t mean bum sex with a group of musicians, it means I can finally go back to the dojo after my eye surgery.
I’m gaggin for some men.
Just to show you how far I’ve sunk:
At least I’m not doing this every night any more….what a prick.
So, no kendo posts on here forthe past two weeks or so (or any other posts for that matter…) because I haven’t done any. “But Gibbo!” I hear you cry “No kendo, are you ill?” Thank you for your concern, but I am fine. In fact better than fine. I’ve just had my eyes blasted by phasers set to kill, and I feel great!
Laser Eye Surgery, in other words. And I can see crystal clear for the first time in ages. I’ve had glasses for nearly 20 years, every single day, and also contacts for the past 5 years, and have just about had enough of the monotenous regime of cleaning and care, and the cost associated.
The process itself was “interesting” (read uncomfortable) but not painful. After a 2 hour check in to make sure you can do the thing in the first place, on a previous day, you do the operation for real. So with my surgical cap on and anesthetic literally flowing in my eye balls, I found myself staring at the flashing green light.
*at this point, I will offer a piece of advice to anyone thinking of taking it up. If they offer you time to take a shit or some other personal break, do. I had a bloody huge fart stored in my arse through the procedure that I couldn’t let go for fear of jolting the whole machine and lancing my lips of by mistake.
Looking up at the green light of the excimer machine (“No Mr Bond, I expect you to DIE!”) you have your eye lids taped back, and then clamped open. Next, they press a frankly claustrophobic machine down on to you that pushed my head back in to the cushion, then fill your eye with stuff (don’t knwo what that was!). Then the lasers start up, to make the flap (they open this to smash up the tissue behind to fix your eye). The good thing is you have the count down, and nothing hurts at all. The bad thing is that it sounds like the death star powering up to destroy your head.
Once the flap is made, your vision instantly deteriorates, because the open it up to look at the tissue behind it that actually recieves the second laser. I’ve no idea what happened here because I really couldn’t see anything, apart from a big messing flashing green lump. Bearing in mind this thing was no bigger than a millimetre or so across when my eyes were good, that was pretty impressive!
From there, they fire up their fully functional battle station, and begin the actually “surgery”. Again no pain, but an amazingly disconcerting burning smell. Disconcerting because you realise it is your eye that is burning and stinks.
Then they replace the flap. Awesome because your vision suddenly returns, and further awesomeness because still being under pain killing drugs, you can watch them “wipe” your flap back in to place likc the are squeegying a car windscreen. That’s really what it looks like!
Once the other eye is done you go for a 20 minute lie down (this was the time I chose to let go of a number of choice musical sounds from my instrumental anus. Because every one had to keep their eyes closed, and you down want to risk opening them and fucking it up, no one will have known it was me! I’m a genius!) to take it easy and recover (and feel the eye drugs run down the back of your throat, and your throat then swell slightly in reaction, if you are me) and then get a quick check up and care lecture, and then done! From arrival to out I was done inside of two hours, a lot of which was actually just waiting round. The only pain was after it was done, and the pain killing eye drops they give you are fucking awesomeness.
Was it worth it? You’re dam right it was. My vision is the clearest it has been as long as I can remember, and I no longer have to dick around with shtie like contacts, or lens solution, or pulling my glasses back out of my baby’s rice covered mits.
And they give you some free shades:
What a nob.
Obviously there is more to it (the after care is relatively involved on the first day and the following day too) but that’s dull.
You’re supposed to wait 1 week for sports, and 1 month for more vigourous activities, like kendo, but I’ve spoken to plenty who waited a week and had no issues. I’ll give it 2, to be safe, but I want to get back quick. The lst time I went to the keiko at the Uni I had some dam good advice from the 2 hachidan who were there, and after seeing my video of the WKC I definately need to go back to the drawing board, so I guess with brand new eyes this is the best chance I’ve got.
Only one downer about the whole thing. I still cannot:
Thinking about that, what was the fucking point! I’ve been robbed! What a total waste of time.