I had PRK surgery on 3/18/2008 and I thought I'd post how it went for others who're thinking about getting it. PRK is the exact same price as LASIK, uses the exact same excimer laser, but has a significantly longer heal time and is more painful. People who have poor near-sightedness, large pupils, and/or thin corneas are generally not the best candidates for LASIK, and that is where PRK comes in.

Short version: if you're as fed up with glasses/contacts as I was, you're patient and you're not a candidate for LASIK, get it. And the long version...

The Procedure (from my point of view)

I scheduled my appointment for 8am and I was up until about 3am the night before because I was so nervous. It worked out in my favor though since I was able to sleep so easily the rest of the day. We arrived at StrongVision at about 8:10am. They gave me some numbing drops for my eyes and I could feel tremendous anxiety, my extremities felt cold and clammy and I could feel the blood draining from my face. I fainted during one of the tests at my first pre-op visit, and I really didn't want that to happen during the procedure. Then they gave me a Valium to relax, and I felt much better in about 5 minutes. They took me into the laser room and gave a brief explanation of what was going to happen. Then they cleaned my eyelash area with an iodine solution, no big deal. The numbing drops work really well, it almost feels like you're blinking over empty eye sockets.

My instructions were to basically to stare at a red blinking light. With the Valium, numbing drops, and everything being blurry anyways, it was really easy to do this. They popped the little eye propper-opener into my eye in about 1 second, it is actually more comfortable than it sounds. Then they slide my head under the big machine.

From here on everything was blurry, but here's what happened from my point of view. There's a green light and another red light, ah there's the blinking red one. A ring-shaped object is placed on my eye, I feel a slight pressure as if I was resting my finger on my closed eyelid. Then a second ring is plopped on there with about the same pressure, this one is filled up with liquid, and held in place for 30 seconds. I see a white blur then the liquid is rinsed off. The stuff they rinse your eye with is ice cold, and that is the most uncomfortable part of the whole procedure. Some goop-like substance is then wiped off my eye. Another rinsing with the cold water. The light is turned off momentarily then my eye is given one more wipe before the cool part. The light is turned down again, then *BZZZ*crack*crack*crack* the laser fires up. There is a faint smell of a curling iron, but not as bad as I had expected since other people told me that was the worst part. With every *buzz* of the laser, the shape of the blinking red dot changes shape. After the laser finishes something blocks my vision for a second or two, then something white is placed on my eye, making it difficult to watch the blinking red dot. Then a translucent white disc is placed on my eye for a bit. Another swab then more squirts of that icy water, damn it's cold. A "bandage" contact is placed over my eye and a few drops placed in it. The eye-propper-opener is gently removed from my eye and I blink. My eye is closed then given a good wipe down.

At this point I can sit up and they switch the eye patch to cover my right eye and prepare my left one. They ask me to read the clock on the wall, I only see a blurry white disc. The laser runs through a few tests in the mean time, then they repeat the same procedure on my left eye. When it is finished I can easily read the clock on the wall. It is miraculous. I think I could only say "wow."

What Really Went On

They gave me a DVD of the procedure which I've uploaded to both Vimeo (higher quality) and Youtube. Watching the procedure is somewhat difficult if you're squeamish. I am still amazed at how little I felt. It's funny watching it because it looks like the most soothing part is the water squirted on my eye, and to me it was the most uncomfortable.

So here's the play-by-play of what really went on. The first metal ring scores a circle on my eye. The second ring is placed onto the score and filled with an alcohol solution that dissolves the epithelium layer of the eye. After its drained and rinsed, the epithelium is wiped off. The laser works in the UV spectrum and breaks down the carbon bonds in the cornea's cells, reshaping it. The white blur they rest on my eye is what they called the popsicle, some sort of frozen artificial tears. The white disc is Mitomycin-C, it changes the cell's mitochondria so that your eye doesn't heal too quickly, making your eye blurry. The bandage contact just reduces the chance for infection and makes it much less painful to blink. It gets removed 5 days later.

Each eye takes less than 8 minutes, and the entire procedure is less than 20 minutes. We were on the road heading home in less than an hour.

Healing

This is really the most frustrating part. The pain is very tolerable with medication, but having blurry vision is frustrating. Especially if you're like me and usually spend about 16 hours a day staring at a glowing screen. You're not supposed to read for extended periods of time either, so plan on being bored, listening to music, and sleeping a lot. The pain meds will definitely help you sleep.

The worst day pain-wise for me was the third day. Every time I opened my eye, the light felt like a hair stuck under a contact. I just kept my eyes closed as much as possible and slept most of the day. The day after was basically pain free, but was the blurriest. At day 6 I had the bandage contact removed and my vision was still a bit blurry. I couldn't even read the top line. At this point I was thinking: WTF have I done. But each day since my vision has improved noticeably.

While some people can see 20/20 after the first 5 days with PRK, it wasn't that way for me. This is really where LASIK is so much better, since you see clear right off the bat. As of 3/31, my vision was already 20/25. It will continue to get better hopefully to at least 20/20 over time (many people's vision is corrected better). The more that you blink, the more your cornea smooths out all of the imperfections from the healing process.

I'm now 2 weeks out, and the only real problems I have is a nagging head ache, the occasional blurriness when I blink, slightly dry eyes, and relatively poor night vision. The Dr. said today that all of those will get better with time so I'm not too worried. and I have another appointment 3 weeks out, and I'll be sure to post any major updates if I have any.

Update 4/22/08: Eyes were 20/20 today. I have nearly zero discomfort, aside from my seasonal allergies. I rarely use the drops any more, I wish I hadn't bought so many. Night vision is clear enough to drive and will improve over time.

...you can always check out Travis' shared items on Google Reader (XML). Also, twitter.

E-lec-tri-city!
AC!
E-lec-tri-city!
DC!
A wonderful kind of energy,
that's E-lec-tri-city!
Si si!

Tom Glazer & Dottie Evans - Energy & Motion Songs - 03 - E-lec-tri-city

Historically, it's never been higher than Chuck Norris, but you never know.

I'm a Northern!

"You have a Northern accent. That could either be the Chicago/Detroit/Cleveland/Buffalo accent (easily recognizable) or the Western New England accent that news networks go for."

I guess the quiz works. Interesting.

I got a Garmin Foretrex 101 for xmas this year, and I finally had the chance to do something cool with it the other day. Now that we've gotten some snow, we can actually use our XC skis that were used much more frequently in years past when winters would start in November (ah, the good old days). The trail above was from when we went skiing in Durand-Eastman Park on Sunday. We went on Saturday too, but I forgot my GPS.

The Foretrex is my first GPS. For my hiking/biking/kayaking/skiing adventures, it's pretty much perfect. It's about the size of a very small cellphone and comes with a velcro strap that fits fine around my arm on the outside of my jacket. One of its quirks is the fact that you download the data through a serial cable. By serial I don't mean universal serial bus, I mean those good ol' 9-pin-Atari-joystick-looking ports that you forgot your PC had. Or that your Mac probably doesn't have, legacy-shmegacy ;-) - all kidding aside though who still uses serial? I think the last serial device that I had was an old UPS that died several years ago.

Connecting the GPS via serial was very easy. No drivers were needed and the freeware app GPS Utility works great for connecting and pulling down data in all kinds of different formats, including Google Earth (KML).

Since the XC ski trails aren't groomed or even marked, the GPS lets me see how far we skied (including detours and getting lost), and keeps me on track should we want to take that route again. For a better detail of the route than the screenshot above, here's a Google Earth version.

Old:

New:

I've upgraded my home server with a slightly improved one. On top of all the stuff the old server had the new server also has:

• WAMP:
  • Apache
  • MySql
  • PHP
• Subversion
• MediaWiki
• .Net 2.0
• PostGreSQL
• SQL 2005 Express
• Planned installs:
  • possibly Rails
  • .Net 3.0

I came across the winners list today. I have no idea when It took place*, but here are some notable results...

Category: 11 Specialty Honey Lager or Ale - 29 Entries
Gold: Redoak Honey Ale, Redoak, Sydney, Australia
Silver: Midas Touch, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Milton, DE
Bronze: McGuire's Millennium Ale, McGuire's Irish Pub #1, Pensacola, FL

Probably one of the greatest beers I've ever had. It's kind of a combination of beer and a mead. I have a recipe to make a clone, but it requires saffron which I don't feel like buying.

Category: 28 German-Style Heller Bock/Maibock - 19 Entries
Gold: JW Dundee's Pale Bock, High Falls Brewing Co., Rochester, NY
Silver: Barre Maibock, Privatbrauerei Ernst Barre GmbH, Lübbecke, Germany
Bronze: Blonde Doppelbock, Capital Brewery Co. Inc., Middleton, WI

I thought that it was a damn good Bock. High Falls came out with a Hefe and something else new that I still have to try.

Category: 41 French- Belgian-Style Saison - 21 Entries
Gold: Straffe Hendrik Blond, Liefmans Breweries, Dentergem, Belgium
Silver: Hennepin Farmhouse Ale, Brewery Ommegang, Cooperstown, NY
Bronze: Barking Duck, Matilda Bay Brewing Co., Melbourne, Australia

Good stuff.

Category: 47 Belgian-Style Dark Strong Ale - 18 Entries
Gold: Bonsecours Brune, Brasserie Caulier, Peruwelz, Belgium
Silver: Lozen Boer Abt, DeProef Brouwerij, Lochristi-Hijfte, Belgium
Bronze: Three Philosophers, Brewery Ommegang, Cooperstown, NY

I have a bottle of this in the bottom of my fridge, now I can't wait to pop it open.

Category: 61 Oatmeal Stout - 24 Entries
Gold: Strom Bomb Stout, Bottoms Up Brewing Co., Pinedale, WY
Silver: The Poet, New Holland Brewing Co., Holland, MI
Bronze: Blackbird Stout, Hereford & Hops Brewpub, Wausau, WI

Good stuff, second only to Murphy's Stout as far as stouts go, IMO.

...mmm, now I'm thirsty...

*Update: it took place in April.

...I f'n hate rebates.

Earlier this year I bought a 12-pack of Honey Brown which had a $1 rebate stuck on it. Honey Brown is usually pretty cheap compared to my other favorites, and I probably would've bought it without the rebate, but knowing that I'd save an extra dollar made me feel a little better.

A few weeks later I filled out the rebate form and started realizing that the rebate form only had the PO Box, and no City, State, and Zip code. I found two ways to contact High Falls Brewery through their terrible flash site and sent messages to both. I got the following response from them on March 17th: the day that the rebate was supposed to be postmarked by:

Good morning,

We apologize for any inconvenience that this mix up may have caused. We would like to thank you for bringing this to our attention since the rebate forms were printed by a separate company and thank you for your interest in Honey Brown. The complete address is listed below. Please feel free to contact us if you have any further inquiries.

HONEY BROWN VALENTINE REBATE
P.O. BOX 4412
YOUNG AMERICA, MN 55558-4412

Thank you,

Consumer Affairs
High Falls Brewing Company
445 St. Paul Street
Rochester, NY 14605
consumeraffairs@genbrew.com
(585) 263.9446

I rushed home for lunch (after all this was for a whole dollar, or $0.61 after postage), and mailed out the rebate. Then in early April the letter with the enclosed rebate was returned with this message on it:

NIXIE	553	1	06	03/30/06
RETURN TO SENDER
NOT DELIVERABLE AS ADDRESSED
UNABLE TO FORWARD
BC:	(my zip+4)35	*1913-14629-17-35

Of course all of this had to happen when I had been working over 10 hours a day 7 days a week for pretty much all of March. Needless to say my blood pressure was high enough without some BS like this. Now I know it was only $1, but it's the principle of the whole thing. I almost felt like sending it to Eliot, I think I have an idea of what would happen, and after all the lawyers got paid, I don't think I'd see my dollar. I've contacted High Falls since then but they've not even bothered responding to my emails, let alone try to rectify their mistake. (how about a $1 off coupon, jerks?) Maybe The Consumerist will save the day? Anyone else get suckered in by this one?

After a bunch of laziness, I finally fixed the W3C Validity of the main page of this site tonight. I've been trying to make my modifications without re-compiling, and so far I've been successful. Someday maybe I'll even get the individual posts to validate. ;-)