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© The Atlanta Journal - Constitution
Sunday, 05/28/2000
TESTIMONIAL: It's nice to be able to look at a tree and see leaves
By David Davidson/Staff
It's miraculous: I was blind (mostly),
but now I can see --- thanks to LASIK surgery.
I've worn glasses or contact lenses since
I was in the seventh grade, and finally --- after years of begging
--- Ken Benson, my opthalmologist, gave me the go-ahead last fall
for LASIK surgery to correct my nearsightedness permanently.
The best LASIK surgeons in the country,
he said, are at the Emory Vision Correction Center in Sandy Springs,
including one of the clinic's founders, Dr. Keith Thompson.
My wife, Ann Hooper, agreed to LASIK for
my Christmas present last year, bless her heart.
The clinic is open days, nights and weekends
for the convenience of its patients.
During the initial visit I got the most
thorough eye exam imaginable. A computer mapped my corneas --- the
part of the eye that gets lasered --- and then I met with Dr. Thompson.
The surgery was two weeks later.
While I reclined in what looked like a
dentist's chair, a nurse thoroughly cleaned the area around my peepers,
applied drops in each eye to numb them, then covered my face with
a sterile drape.
My eyelids were retracted with a "lid speculum,"
giving the laser a nice fat target and preventing me from blinking
during the procedure.
Next, using a very sophisticated computerized
machine, Dr. Thompson cut a flap in the first layer of the cornea
in one eye, then started the laser process on the second layer.
All I could see was a blur of red light, and it took less than a
minute. Then the flap was smoothed down.
The process was repeated on my other eye.
The only discomfort was the speculum, and it was minor.
I was given a prescription for pain medication,
steroid and antibiotic drops, artificial tears and plastic shields
to tape over my eyes at night to prevent me from rubbing them while
I slept.
One eye started hurting on the way home.
When I woke up the next morning, I had knocked one of the shields
off, and the pain was worse. During the 24-hour follow-up visit,
they found I'd displaced the flap on that eye and "repositioned"
it.
After a few days my vision was improved
but still fuzzy. I knew I was going to need "enhancement" procedures
on both eyes. This fine-tuning within a year of the original surgery
is performed at no additional cost.
So three months later, I went through the
whole process again. But while my eyes felt a little scratchy afterward,
it wasn't anything like I experienced before.
I could see better immediately, and over
the next few days it got even better. At the three-week follow-up,
I tested 20/20 in both eyes (before, I was 20/2,400 --- off the
scale). That was the result I had anticipated.
It's nice to be able to look at a tree
and see individual leaves instead of a blur of green. And to read
the county on a license plate on the car in front of me --- and
a clock on the bedside table when I wake up in the morning .
It's a miracle.
ON THE WEB: For more information about
this topic: www.visionforlife.com
Reprinted with permission from The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta
Constitution. Further reproduction, retransmission or distribution
of these materials without prior written consent of The Atlanta
Journal and The Atlanta Constitution, and any copyright holder identified
in the material's copyright notice, is prohibited.
* The practice changed its name to InView in 2004. Emory trained
surgeons Keith Thompson, MD and George Waring, MD, founded the practice
in 1994.
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