LasEk??? Not what I had researched

The best laid plans. I had planned on LASIK (note, with an "i"), where they cut a flap out of the cornea around your pupil, and then flip the flap, zap you, you pop up from the table seeing perfectly and singing in tune. Wait, back to the Morning Before Surgery.
I arrived Tuesday night in Istanbul. The hospital sent the most charming man to pick me up and he drove me along the waterfront to the hotel (Mim), which is next door to the Istanbul Surgical Hospital. I checked in and was shown my room, which is fine. It's modern, clean, has what I need, and the bed is comfy I took a long hot shower cuz I knew after the surgery I can't shower/bathe for a couple days and especially can't wash my face.
Wednesday morning I walk over to the hospital... again, it's next door. This will be important later. I sign in. I came armed with British cookies, which the staff loved. The Japanese part of me knows it's important to bring a snack to people you'll be working with. They do a million tests on my eyes, including dilating them and then checking them every 5 minutes. The tests take about 2 hours and in between tests I am able to sit in the waiting room and see the folks who had surgery yesterday as they come in for their check-ups. They look happy! One gal isn't so happy, though, and her husband is with her and they are ushered over to where I am (I sit alone because most patients are from Germany and I don't speak German. I'm also the only one I see who's here for surgery today; I like this because I'd read that some places are like assembly lines and you go in with 14 other people!) and the nurse speaks to them, telling him to get her some vitamin C, no baths for a week, etc. Yikes, I think, this lady must have had some other issues!
Then I'm led into the doctor's room again. She tells me my corneas are of a wonderful thickness for Lasik. Yay! But that I have some topography issues and also some "spots" on my retina that are probably genetic and that will eed laser ablation and so they can't do the Lasik surgery (I guess because the flap would be a problem?) and she recommends Lasek. LASEK? What? I ask her what the difference is and I get a whole bunch of info that processes down to "Lasik=flap, Lasek=no flap, we just scrape a thin layer of the cornea off and it heals really quickly". OKAY, but I ask about time to consider it, can I go back to my hotel (and Google, I am thinking), can I sit down? Sure, comes the answer. So I sit and wait a sec and they come and ask me to follow. Upstairs one floor and I am in another room (by the way, the hospital is nice and clean and modern) and the female nurse hands me a pill and some water and I take it. What's that, I ask. For nerves, she answers. Oh. Pretty soon the male nurse/interpretor comes and explains the Lasek procedures and I realize I am IN... I am gonna get Lasek. No time to Google!
The male nurse/interpretor is really clear where the doc kinda glossed over a bit. He tells me the difference between Lasik and Lasek is PAIN. Lasik is fairly painless and you do get up from the table seeing well right away. You just have to be careful of your flap for like a year. Lasek hurts like heck for 2 or 3 days and then you see pretty fuzzy for another week and then you get better little by little and maybe a month later it's where it's going to be.
I'm covered with blue booties and outfit, cleaned up, and led into the operating room. I lie on the table and the fun begins. It's funny, but as it was happening I kept thinking "this is TORTURE!", but a day or two after it all seemed like not such a big deal. But here's what they did (not for the faint of heart):
First, they put a gluey sheet over my eye to hold my eyelashes back. All I could see then was white. Next they cut an opening in that and then they attached the device that held my eye open (one eye at a time. Some day they will get smart and do both at the same time!)- that felt bizarre. Then I was told to watch the green light, but as the laser did its job for the next minute or so, I saw all kinds of crazy lights and had a hard time focusing on anything! After then first one I was dreading the second one, but same procedure. Then they put a contact lens on each eye as a sort of bandage and they put funky sunglasses on you (see photo).
Somehow I got back to the hotel... I think someone must have walked me or at least pointed me in the right direction; I could see a bit at that point. I went straight up to my room and wondered why they had given me so many pain pills... it didn't really hurt! I fell asleep for a couple hours and then woke up with something akin to having jalapeno juice in my eyes! Ouch! Took a couple pills and slept until the next morning, when I felt my way back to the hospital with the help of the hotel staff.
The first couple days are really rough. Since I thought my surgery would be simple, I actually booked another hotel nearer the sights for nights 3-10. In hindsight I would have canceled that and stayed closer for at least a couple more days. With Lasik it wouldn't have been a problem
If you're having Lasek, just know that you will be told that it will take a day or two until you can see. And perfect vision in a week or so. It's taking me much long, but I am still really, really happy with it. And the more rest you can get while healing, the better.... apparently the old cornea cells have to be blinked away and sleep/rest really helps with that. I have found that every time i nap I wake up with improvement (and every time I go to a Turkish restaurant and listen to music half the night, I get worse!). (see photo - that's me on day 3, the first day I could stand to look at my eyes in the mirror).

Saturday I am back at the hospital for my "final" check up. Scary, cuz I don't feel anywhere near finally healed. But they declare me on the right track and they remove the contact bandages and tell me I'll heal faster now that they are out. Oh, and then I get the lecture about vitamin C and so on that I saw the lady and her hubby getting on Day 1... Now I know why she looked so grumpy - she got Lasek, too! Ouch!

Lasik!

I've gotten a wild hair, as my mom used to say, and am off to Istanbul, Turkey for laser vision correction. Have I made the right choice? As someone who doesn't know much about their local healthcare options (I'm American, living in the UK, recently moved from Japan, and have been getting all my healthcare needs met in Thailand), I did what anyone with too much computer time would do: I Googled it! I found that I could get laser surgery in the UK (advertised for about $1000 an eye but then that goes to about $3500 an eye for 99% of the population) but it's expensive and I'd have to go into London, which is like a whole foreign country compared to the region where I live. Then there's the US... but where would I stay? How would I choose a doc? And it's 10 hours' flight and expensive to get there and... Then I decided on Thailand. I know the hospital there (Bumrungrad. See Mom's blog for info on how my brother got great treatment for his terminal cancer there and how he's still kicking cancer's behind three years later!) and I have great faith in them... they are State of the Art defined. But, then it was $2200 just for the air tix and it's two flights and 16 hours' flying time. Ugh. Then I found that Turkey is perhaps THE place for eye surgery for medical tourism in Europe. So with no prior experience with Turkey, no friends there, etc., I picked a hospital (Istanbul Surgical Hospital) and I booked a flight, hotel, and the exam, and I am off. Here's me being goofy for the camera just before the surgery. Those glasses are going to be turned into sunglasses post-op, and I am donating my boxes o' contacts, too!

Congratulations... TO ME!

YAY! After three summers, tens of thousands of dollars, and a million Dr. Peppers, I have graduated with my Masters in Educational Technology! Yipppee! I am so happy about it - I really did enjoy the time I spent in Plymouth working on it (the Michigan State University overseas program at Univ of Plymouth), and I have made some great friends through it, but I am very much looking forward to planning some kind of big blowout travel next year, rather than going to school.

Summer Fashion in Plymouth

It's that time of year again; this year is the third, and final summer of my ET (educational technology) grad school life in Plymouth. I'm doing a Master's at Michigan State U, but through the overseas program, so I've been doing summers in Plymouth. Today the summer fashions were alive and well... and since we're working on i-images, I seriously considered using this one, labeling it with something akin to "Sometimes Mother Really Does Know Best" or "Why we have a Dress Code at This School."

Spring is in the Air!

Ahhh, the forecast is for snow tonight, but it's sunny and clear this afternoon. I hear from the locals that they used to get quite a bit of snow here, but that there hasn't been a good snow in maybe 5 years. We've had four "fog days", or late starts to school because the fog was so thick you couldn't see the road to get in to school. I'm up for a snow day, so I have my fingers crossed.

I took this photo on the way home - I just decided to turn left instead of right and try a new route. In the end, I had to turn around and start over, but it was worth it... what a beautiful view.

Meet Sarah

Life in England is still going well. I'm back in Harrogate today, paying $30 to have internet access for the next 12 hours, so I plan to make the most of it.

I met Sarah over the Christmas holidays. Apparently she's the only wax effigy in the UK outside Westminster Abbey. I'll probably hear from someone that I'm wrong on that, but that's the way I heard it.

Sarah Hare was the daughter of the prominent family in Stowe Bardolph, and when she died young her family had her body placed in their church with this wax effigy. Her death has a story as well: she was doing sewing work on a Sunday and pricked her finger, which became infected. She died of blood poisoning and her story seves as warning to those who would break the Sabbath.

You can tell she accumulates some mold, but she is still absolutely incredible. To see her, you have to go through a creaky wooden door, through the ancient stone church, through through another creaky wooden door into the inner room of the church, and then you open a cabinet door and there she is. Sarah, I hope I didn't disturb your rest with the photos, but I think you are beautiful!

Back from DC. Some of you may know I was in Washington, DC last week. I had two conferences to attend, both at the same time and same place, about 10 minutes from each other. Both were important, so I sort of ran back and forth.

DC was beautiful. My mom and step-dad met me there and we stayed in Crystal City the first two days, then moved to Virginia Square. While in Crystal City we debated what to do/see and we all wanted to go to the Smithsonian, but I knew I had a "business meeting/tour" there later in the week, so I suggested the Frederick Douglass house in Anacostia. I'm really glad we went there, though it was a cooold walk from the bus stop (up a steep hill to the front porch) only to find out we needed to buy tickets at the visitors center at the bottom of the hill (not well marked, obviously). For those of you who may not remember your middle school history, Douglass was born into slavery and though a lady started to teach him his alphabet, he effectively taught himself to read and write and eventually became a journalist, politician, the first Black US Marshall, and friend to Abraham Lincoln. Douglass' story is truly inspirational.

Celebrity sighting. My mom saw that Paula Deen was going to be in DC autographing copies of her new cookbook, but she was nowhere near where we were staying and we didn't have a car. Ironically, though, Phil drove me out to one of the malls one evening- maybe 15 miles from where we were staying - and while I was shopping I overheard that Chef Ming Tsai was upstairs! Wow! I love Paula Deen for her awesome use of butter and yummy stuff, but I also love Ming Tsai for his creativity and Asian flair. It was a pretty big crowd, but I got close enough for a photo. While I was there, I was wondering why Phil didn't wander over, too... eventually I found him about 20 yards away, totally oblivious, in the bedding section.