LASIK at Hoopes Vision

January 20, 2010

I had LASIK eye surgery on Wednesday and it was an amazing experience.  I have only been wearing contacts and glasses for the past 3 years since I turned the BIG 40.  But I have hated wearing them.  A friend of mine from work (Tracy) had LASIK this past summer and has loved it, so I decided to go and have a consultation.  I had my first appointment in December and luckily I was a good canidate for the procedure.  For 10 days prior to the procedure I could not wear my contacts, which you would think would be no big deal, but now that I was used to wearing them and not just glasses, 10 days seemed like forever.  Wednesday finally arrived and I was a little bit nervous.   When we arrived and got checked in, they took me back and did some scans of my eye.  I only had to have my right eye done, since I still had great 20/20 vision in my left eye.  After the eye scans they took  Rory and I back to to get  ready.  We met with a nurse and she asked if we had any questions and then she gave me a Valium to help calm my nerves.  This was quite nice, I had never had one before, but it seemed to really mellow me out and relax.  Then we went and met with another Dr. and he checked my eye again and they gave me what they call the lunch lady attire.  It consisted of a blue hair cap and matching shoes (very sexy).  Fianllly we met with with Dr. Hoopes Sr. who would be performing the procedure and he went over what was going to happen.  Then the nurse put some eye numbing drops in my eye and I waited my turn.  While I was waiting I was able to watch two other people have their eyes done.  It is pretty amazing in just a short time you can see without the aid of contacts or glasses.   First they take you to the laser that cuts a flap in your eye, you look up into these really bright lights and they make the flap.  The actual cutting takes only 15 seconds.  After the flap is cut they take you back to a waiting area and put you in this awesome massage chair for about 10 minutes to wait for the bubbles in your eye to disappear that were caused by the cutting of the flap.  Then they took me to the other Laser table that actually does the LASIK and you look up into a red light.  This part of the procedure took about 20 seconds and you can actually see a red laser light going over your eye.  It was a little freaky and at the same time amazing.  After the laser they took us back to a room has a wait a few minutes and did another check on the eye to make sure everything looked good, gave me some instructions about 3 different eye drops I would be using for the next month and sent me home with some sexy looking dark glasses.   From start to finish we were there for 2 hours and then we went home and I got to take a 2 hour nap that was really nice.  They want you to go home and keep your eye closed to help with the healing, so that was a nice little perk of the surgery.   The next day I had to come back for a check-up and everything looked great.  I then have to go back in one month, then 3 months, 6 months and then a year for eye checks to make sure everyting is still good.  I would recommed LASIK to anyone who is sick of wearing contacts or glasses.  The only down side to the surgery is you can't wear make-up for 3 days following the surgery, a small price to pay.  The consultation is FREE and they have performed LASIK for the past 10 years here in Utah.  Hoopes Vision is know has been recognized nationally for their outstanding work in the LASIK industry.  They also have pictures of local celebrities in their office along with the famous golfer Mike Weir who have all had their LASIK surgery at Hoopes.  If you have any questions give me a call. 

This is me right before the surgery with my sexy lunch lady hat and the yellow R over my right eye, so they make sure they do the right eye.

This is me on the LASIK table waiting for the doctor.

Another picture of me on the table.

This is Dr. Hoopes Sr. and his two nurses.

This is my eyeball on the TV screen where Rory was watching the procedure.