Before starting to work in GS Eye Center, my image of vision correction laser surgery is only laser and eye but I have never thought deeply about the actual operation process especially for someone who is not from ophthalmology backgroundJ. My cousins and friends had the surgery already and I have received positive feedbacks from them regarding the surgery.
After my first step into the surgery room, I had to change my uniform and be careful with what I touched. I have butterfingers and I am not a meticulous person. Our eye center has MEL 80, VISX and IntraLase machines, and all these have to be tested every morning before any surgery begins. The machines aren’t huge but the sound VISX and MEL 80 give out during laser process is loud with light burning smell. Of course as a beginner, I wasn’t expecting anything like that and I was shocked to hear the sound. It’s like…a road construction worker drilling a hole in the ground.
After testing, I moved around watching my co-workers preparing the instruments needed for the surgeries on that day and taking notes of what was used during the surgeries. At 11 am, the first patient stepped into the operation room for LASEK using VISX. After explaining the procedure to the patient, eye drops were given to sterilize and anesthetize the eyes. The patient was then brought into the operation room and after lying on the bed, the nurse covered the face area except the eyes with a waterproof drape. The laser sound was then demonstrated for the patient while the nurse washed the eyes with balanced salt solution.
After washing, surgeon came in and he started by using a speculum to keep the eyes open. Then the surgeon used a scrapper to scrap the top layer of the cornea and the laser procedure started. The whole procedure only lasted for less than a minute per eye and eye was washed with saline. Eye drops were used to soothe the eye and speed up corneal healing process. Finally the operated eye was covered with a contact lens (0.0) to enable the cornea to heal without any possibility of inflammation. The surgeon then removed the speculum and repeated the same process to the other eye.
After the procedure, the patient was brought to the recovery room to rest for about 10 minutes and the surgeon checked on the eyes again and set up a follow-up appointment before the patient left the hospital. It was definitely amazing seeing someone walking in the center with glasses and getting out of the center without glasses. The whole procedure was painless but the eyes will start tearing for the next three days as it was a LASEK procedure and eye drops have to be used for at least 2-4 weeks.
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