*blows the dust off the blog*... yeah i've been one lazy git. and a relatively uninspired one at that. so much to talk about with the move to elias road, getting my xbox 360 (and all the games... which is why i've not exactly been productive blog wise...), the new nephew (zachary kevin loh zhi kai is his official name... he's the second terror in my book... tho everyone says he looks like me. takes one to know one... O_o), the art module, getting my deferment for world youth day (finally... big big thanks to all who made it possible, including the Big Guy and all who sent Him a word about me! =)... but yeah. life goes on.
and it's pretty good.
anyhow, yesterday, i had a check up at the eye doctor's to follow up on a recommendation from my optometrist after a partial scan of my retina didn't show any apparent damage from getting struck by a basketball about a year or so back.
and after getting my eyes numbed and dilated (the numbing solution stings by the way...), the doc checked me out and found a tear in the right side of my retina.
which needed lasering to repair. whoopdeedoo.
not a difficult choice considering i'm at high risk of suffering a detached retina since i'm so terribly myopic. in case you're not sure on how bad a detached retina is, it means blindness. curtains. yup.
a few more tests, photographing of my eye (which also reveals that i have somewhat abnomally sized optic nerves) and more stinging numbing solution later, i hopped on the operating table and the doc went about his business.
what happens next is pretty surreal, especially when you have to keep still throughout the whole process with this green beam of concentrated light burning away at the back of your eye to weld the tear. it's not exactly the most soothing experience, and honestly, it's damn bloody scary. not only could i feel every zap as the laser pulsed about doing its work, but essentially, my eye was simply blinded during the process. and it hurt too. i even could vaguely see a cloud of reddish purple at the corner of my vision after the initial laser pulses, which was probably blood. after that, my right eye's vision blurred and disappeared in a wave of flashes of bright green light accompanied by pain like needle pricks, but not quite so sharp. there was one flash where i swear i could see what looked like veins or nerves on a whole screen of green, probably as the laser hit my retina dead centre and flooded out my vision with green light.
after all the groaning and tensing which lasted for a five minutes that seemed like an eternity, the laser ceased. and i just burst into laughter, my usual way of dealing with pain and told my mom and sister, who sat through it all, about it. initially i couldn't see outta my right eye, but slowly and surely, it rebooted back to life, albeit feeling like it had been run over by a truck. fortunately, the paracetemol i took before the op started to kick in and dull the pain considerably.
while i got myself a new phone after that, it pales in comaprison to the totally surreal experience i had before that.
now i know why they say never to point a laser at your eyes. it may not be as powerful as the one that stitched my retina up, but i sure as hell wouldn't want one near my eye.
