I had Lasik eight months ago, and apparently I'm
a very ungrateful patient--my doctor thinks I
should be thrilled. My vision does test out much
better than it did before *without* my thick glasses, but almost *nothing* is better than, or even as good as, it was with them: the field of vision is wider, but clarity, range, depth perception, focus, none of that is as good. I see the eye chart (or the highway sign, or the newspaper) and can usually make out what it says, but it seems to be mushy or made out of pixels or seen through slightly frosted glass. I don't see clearly, I see dully, but well enough to make the surgeon's staff exclaim with satisfaction (the doctor himself speaks to me as little as possible, with hearty haste, because of all
the little problems I claim to have) and look
to me to cheer with them.

What is really surprising is that my *mid*-range,
from computers to people, say three to six feet,
is quite unreliable. I can read (with one, monovisioned eye), but can't see people's
expressions or features clearly, and am always making little mistakes at work because of having to guess at numbers or letters or people's
identities at mid-distance. The glasses I got for that (of the three pairs I have now) don't seem to help.

The first few months after s-day I thought I'd
go mad with all the funhouse effects--double/
triple vision, ghosts, light smears, no edges
to anything (like stairs)--but those did calm down after a while. The ghosts are still there but they're hazier. Lights still seem too dim or too bright, and I can't find my shoes in the closet anymore, so they're all piled by the front door. If I lose something dark-colored I just let it go--it's too frustrating to look for a dark shape in a dim room, and if the lights are turned way up everything's lost in the glare. Colors are still unattractive because they run into each other, but they seem to be truer than they were at first.

My own eye doctor (who incidentally advised against the surgery in the first place--"if it's not materially affecting your quality of life to see as you are now, it may not be worth the risk") tells me the results were as good as could be expected, and recommends that I not have further surgery (as if I would). He says there could be some "complex microirregularities" which vary my vision from one angle to another that it's possible my brain could learn to deal with, as it could with some of the light effects.
I'll live in hope. There's no point in my "regretting" having the surgery--if I hadn't I'd still be thinking I should--but it was a mistake. The surgeon, who by all accounts is
a good one, would not agree. By his measures
it was a total success, but I am hampered by
the results nearly every moment so far.