Keratotomy (or, my potential dalliance with prescription drugs)

I had my eyes operated on back in 1991. God, that's a long time ago.

I was married to my pharmaceutical-salesman husband, and the procedure was innovative and originated in Houston, where we lived at the time. It was specifically covered by our health insurance FOR THAT YEAR ONLY, because the CEO of his company wanted to have it done, himself. After that year, the window would be closed.

So I took it.

I was just starting my second year of architecture school, and the idea of messing with my eyes was a little - daunting. But it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Eye surgery, for $100 a pop. Well, popped eye, that is.

There were two hurdles. One, I was FREAKED OUT about it. Cut my eye? That's just not something I sign up for, willingly..... well. Two, I was too young. The 'rules' of the procedure required a 30-yr-old eye - one that had reached a level of growth stability that would make the operation accurate and binding. I was only 22.

I, even with my subconscious quaking fear of the operation, would not stand to be turned down. Enter charm and persuasion. I made my pitch - that I knew that I was under the age threshold for the procedure, but that my expectations were not to achieve 100%, but to supplement my active lifestyle, to be able to do the camping, watersports, etc., without dealing with contact lenses. I needed my freedom. End result is: they agreed to do it.

Now, I just had to go through with it.

The procedure involved measuring the curvature of my cornea and making radial cuts that would allow the cornea surface to flatten, thus counteracting the oblong shape of my eye. As my eye was very young, they would only take the procedure to 70%, out of concern that my eye might 'over-react' to the flattening, and make me FAR sighted. 70%. That sounded fine to me.

What DIDN'T sound fine to me was the fact that I'd be AWAKE for the procedure. And that in order to work things around my work and school schedule, I'd need to schedule each eye separately, so I'd have to go through it TWICE.

Let me tell you, not much rivals upcoming conscious-eye-surgery in the generation of bad dreams department. Add to it I'm a VERY visual person with a VERY active imagination, and you guessed it - myriads of horrific nightmares. The dental scene in Marathon Man type nightmares. Requiem for a Dream type nightmares. Japanese horror film, Audition, type nightmares.

The morning of the first operation, I was quaking in my boots. I mustered up all the steely stoicism I could, and tried to keep it together. They did a routine checkup, and approved me for surgery. They laid me on a gurney, and gave me a Valium.

This was the first time I'd ever taken Valium, and my concept of it being a 50's-era 'Mother's Little Helper', didn't help my faith that this would calm the inner panic I was feeling. After about 10 minutes, they moved me to the staging area, where some mysterious (and likely horrific) head harness was strapped on to immobilize me, and another (also mysterious, also horrific) utensil effectively separated my lids, and clamped onto my eyeball.

THAT is when I realized how potently effective Valium is. Because the inner scream had subsided. Because I wasn't clinging to the ceiling tiles.

They doused my eye with a combo of topical anelgesic and antibiotics, to immediately fill the cuts as they were made, to minimize the risk of infection. They stamped the pre-measured pattern onto the surface of my eye, and positioned the multi-headed operation task light directly over my head. And began.

Now, this part I don't really remember, but in recovery, the nurses (and my then-husband, who'd observed the entire procedure on a monitor located outside the operating room and described everything in grotesque detail to me later) were chuckling over my response to the doctor, when asked if 'everything was okay'. I replied, in an awestruck tone, "this is the most BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL thing I have EVER seen!"

Apparently, swirled chemicals on my eye, backlit by a multi-bulbed operation light, observed under the influence of a mind-altering benzodiazepine derivative, is pretty damn cool.

And THIS is why I don't do drugs. Because, clearly, I'd become addicted. After all, how could I ever walk away from ongoing opportunities to up the ante on the most BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL vision I'd ever seen?