I’ve worn glasses since I was in fourth grade.

I remember the first time I put them on at a doctor’s office and didn’t notice much of a difference. But then, as my mom drove me home, I took a look out the window. The trees had transformed, as though a sharpened saw had cut out each individual leaf–leaves that had previously grown together to form a fuzzy green halo on a large, brown cylinder. My eyes couldn’t get enough of the world–how had I slowly begun to miss so much detail without realizing?

In middle school, I got contacts.

That’s when life really improved… after the first few weeks of spending 20 plus minutes trying to touch my eyeballs, that is.

No longer did I have to run around in the Florida heat with my glasses sliding down my nose, slick with sweat and dirt. I could wear sunglasses that weren’t the dorkiest clip on shades in the entire world. I found myself constantly reaching for my face to adjust glasses that were no longer there.

I spent 10 years wearing contacts. I was a model contact-wearer: I took them off every night, I changed my solution regularly, I even switched to the hydrogen peroxide kind that burns your eyes out if you put your contacts back into your eyes before six hours has passed.

…

Anyway, I did everything right.

And then one day my eyes started feeling weird.

After about two weeks had passed and I realized nothing was improving, I went to the eye doctor, who diagnosed me with GPC: Giant Papillary Conjunctivitis, aka large, painful bumps that grow on the inside of the eyelids because of an allergen. In my case, that allergen was contacts.

I could not comprehend how after ten years of 365 day use my eyes would suddenly reject contacts. The doctors’ responses?

“It happens all the time.”

The doctor put me on a course of steroids and I avoided contacts for two weeks. My eyes healed, and I went back to the contacts.

And then it happened again.

That’s when I decided, right then, that I would be getting some version of laser eye surgery.

Many people have asked me why I chose PRK over LASIK, and most had never heard of PRK before I told them about it. I had never heard of PRK until talking with doctors about eye surgery either!

Here’s what I learned and what pushed me to choose PRK over LASIK: LASIK involves a small flap cut into the eye, and PRK does not. Also, if you ever get hit in the head after LASIK, bad things can happen (too icky for the blog). The reason everyone chooses LASIK? One day recovery versus about a month.

I chose the month.

Now, let me tell you, this next part is rough. If you want PRK, and you want an honest account of recovery, keep reading. If you do not work with kids (or otherwise fear concussions), and are cool with LASIK, probably just do that.

Day of Surgery:

I get to the doctor’s office (not a hospital) and get my eyes checked out one last time. Then, they give me some Valium. Maybe it worked, maybe it didn’t. I couldn’t really tell, because I was a stress basket.

I go into the room with the laser and sit back in a chair. They hand me a stuffed something, bear? Elephant? I was too freaked out to even look at it.

Then, they began.

They covered my left eye and started with my right. My eye was held open the entire time, probably between three and five minutes. There was a series of swabs, drops, liquids, ointments, cloths. I found myself clutching the stuffed thing for dear life, trying my best to continue breathing normally as they talked me through each part.

“Next, you’re going to feel some liquid as we flush your eye.”

“Now, you’re going to feel the laser for twenty seconds.”

I could smell my eye burn.

My teeth clenched, hard, as I worked to not squirm, as my eye tried desperately to shut.

“Three, two one.”

Next eye.

The three to five minutes per eye felt like a tortured eternity as the stuffed animal almost became stuffing. I heard myself making very strange, strangled sounds of discomfort I’d never heard.

You get the picture.

Then, it was over. Twelve minutes and out. I walked right out the door with my boyfriend to drive me home.

We stepped outside and I felt instantly blinded, despite the blackout sunglasses they sent me with. You know the little plastic and paper sunglasses you get after you get your eyes dilated? These were not those. These were easily the darkest sunglasses I have ever seen. And they felt like they did nothing.

I shut my eyes the entire car ride back and once we arrived at his place, I realized I could not open my eyes outside at all. The sun through my sunglasses was somehow literal fire burning into my eyes if they were open even for a second. Jeremy had to guide me into the apartment, where I instantly got into bed.

During the car ride, the numbing agent the doctors put on my eyes had started to wear off, and by the time we got home, it was gone.

Now, the doctors did prescribe me Tylenol with Codeine. I was not so hot on the idea of taking this drug, due to its opioid content. The doctors gently but insistently stated that I needed to start the medicine as soon as I got home, preferably with food, and that it would make me very sleepy and potentially nauseous.

Pre eye surgery me: no thanks, I’ll struggle on through the pain. I’ll be fine!

Post eye surgery me: GIVE ME THE DRUGS!!!!

I have never experienced pain like the pain of recovering from PRK in my entire life.

By the time I got into bed, I am pretty sure I was sobbing and yelling through the apartment for the medicine. Just as I was about to take it, we remembered the doctors’ orders included taking the drugs with food.

So, I’m sitting in the bed, can’t open my eyes, blinded, literally, with pain, and Jeremy makes and FEEDS ME eggs.

That’s love.

But that is beside the point.

I take the medicine, promptly pass out.

Wake up, super nauseous, not hungry at all, force down some crackers, another Tylenol with Codine, pass out.

The next 24 hours were a haze. A haze that also included having to do two eye drops, at least five minutes apart, four times a day. (I had an eye drop regimen that lasted for a MONTH.) I don’t know why I somehow thought people go get eye surgery and then it’s over, nothing else to do afterwards…

Then comes the follow up appointment. Literally the next morning. 24 hours after they laser both my eyes.

On the morning of the second day, I am able to open my eyes enough to walk to the car, and Jeremy drives me to the appointment.

I am somehow feeling decent and am impressed, glad that the pain is over and it actually wasn’t that bad, come to think of it.

Then, the doctor lets me know that typically, the second day is the worst pain.

…

I’m not entirely sure what happened between the end of the follow up appointment and arriving home, but I ended up back in bed, sobbing uncontrollably, to the point where Jeremy had to call my surgeon and get numbing eye drops sent to a pharmacy near his house that minute.

That second day, indeed, was the worst pain. Of my life.

Once I got the numbing drops probably two hours after the pain began, I finally drifted off into a pain, exhaustion, and Codine induced slumber, and when I woke up, the searing pain, thankfully, was gone.

After day two, I steadily increased in function and decreased in pain.

Many people asked me throughout all stages of recovery, “How well can you see?”

Because most people think of LASIK when they consider laser eye surgery, most people think that you can see fine the next day. To be honest, I was a little surprised when I couldn’t see much on day three, then four, five, (this is where I started getting worried…) and then all of a sudden, it did start to improve! By day eight or so, I felt like I was doing incredibly well.

At my second follow up appointment, a little over a week after surgery, the doctor removed a protective contact that they had placed over my lenses at the end of surgery. The dryness and irritation that had gradually gotten worse and worse due to the protective contact instantly disappeared, and it was unbelievable relief. But then, I realized that I could not see more than fuzzy shapes again.

“You’ll notice that your vision is worse now that the contacts are out of your eyes.”

Yeah, you can say that again, I mused while thinking about how I was going to somehow drive myself home with this new fuzzy vision. The doctors had said that I would be fine to drive after the appointment, so I had come alone.

I confirmed that, in the doctor’s medical opinion, I was safe to drive home, and off I went.

It then took THREE WEEKS for my vision to fully sharpen. By the middle of the second week after the contacts had been removed, I started freaking out, thinking that something had to have gone wrong. People kept asking me how amazing it was to be able to see and I was getting pretty darn sure I had ruined my eyes.

Some quick research (that for some reason I didn’t do before surgery (???)) said that PRK recovery often takes a full month, and my fears were quelled.

And here we are today, two and a half months after surgery, with 20/15 vision.

But the real best part?

I can see before I go to sleep and when I wake up, no glasses required.

All that pain, the month long recovery, the nausea– I would do it all again without a second thought. If you’re considering laser eye surgery and have the means to acquire it, do it. You won’t regret it.