For the past 18 years of my life, I've been near-sighted (-11.5 myopia). I've worn glasses since I was seven.
It's one of the genetic gifts my parents gave me, but I'm sure my penchant for watching television, playing video games, and reading books with a flashlight when I should have been sleeping didn't help any.
I started wearing contacts when I was 13 years old and became liberated. I could play sports without fear of my glasses breaking (at some point, I had broken a pair of glasses every month), and I could run around without my glasses fogging up. I could wear sunglasses!
Recently though, my optometrist told me that I'd been wearing my contacts too often and that I was starving my eyes of much needed oxygen- thus my eyes were getting more and more red because my body was trying to feed oxygen through blood vessels. I had been told this before in 9th grade, so I had limited my contacts to a max of 12 hours a day. It became annoying though when I would start my day with a 6 AM run, then have to switch to glasses at 6 PM for dinner, especially when my workday would sometimes extend late into the night. When I would go to conferences, I would wear contacts during the night, and find that glasses were less painful after a night of socializing. Also, if I couldn't find my glasses or my contacts were unavailable, I was literally blind.
Well, I finally chose to get LASIK. I pay about $250/year in contacts, eyeglasses, and eye appointments, so given I have 15 years left before my eyes start failing me because of old age, I might as well just pay an up-front cost. Additionally, who will be providing -10 contacts when the zombie apocalypse occurs?!
Since I had enough corneal tissue, I had a choice between LASIK (the most popular form of laser eye surgery) and bladeless PRK (LASEK and a bunch of other names). LASIK has a shorter recovery time (I was working the next day, but had to wear the goggles...) but is a little more invasive, while PRK is less invasive, but has a longer recovery (6 days- no sight, plus all types of other stuff). Both surgeries require a few weeks to fully recover. I chose the former because the difference was negligible for me.
So on Monday, I said adieu to the Asian Steve Urkel and said hello to the guy who can wake up in the morning with functional vision (not great night vision). It's not nearly as good as the vision I had with contacts (it is only the fourth day), but it astounds me that I don't have to take off my contacts at 11 PM at night. I have light sensitivity, see halos (which I just realized I've seen for my whole life, so it's astounding that other people never experienced that). It's no different than wearing contacts (after contacts, Urkel was more heard, than seen :D ) , but I'm sure there will be little things that astound me. Moreover, for someone at my degree of near-sightedness, almost everyone wondered why I hadn't done it sooner.
Man, I used to love this shirt back in middle school - now I live in SF!
