Since my early years I had yearned for a day when glasses or contacts would not be required, since I was always active, especially in the water where contacts were a nuisance, and cliff jumping without was downright dangerous.
About four years ago I looked into the possibility of correction. RK had been replaced by excimer surgery, and it was a very exciting solution. I proceeded to find a Doctor who was experienced with this procedure and had nothing but god things to say about it. At this time LASIK had not been introduced, and I proceeded to have PRK performed on my left eye. During the pre-op discussion the doctor ensured that everything would go very well, which calmed my apprehensions. My last question was whether I had forgotten to ask anything, which was met with a chuckle and a definite 'NO'.

In the months following I was to learn that this doctor was using a laser which was not quite the current standard for excimer surgery. The maximum ablation size was 5 millimeters, and checking the doctors' own records of my statistics, he had recorded that my pupil dilation was over 8 millimeters. The beam profile of this laser was much more overcorrecting than the standard, and I was very overcorrected for months. The final defect was the off-center nature of the ablation. The 5mm ablation size made driving in anything but sunlight a nightmare, with huge haloes around every light source.

When I approached the doctor with my concerns, he was quick to point out that I could read the 20/20 line, regardless of any aberrations and double images. He stated that there was nothing more to be done, and joked that as I got older my pupils wouldn't dilate as large. His last question to me was when I would schedule the other eye.

The next few months were spent seeking a solution to my problem. Any doctors I would consult were happy to do my other eye, but would not even speak about my previous surgery. Some would not even answer questions. I finally found another surgeon who would perform a zonal enlargement of my first surgery, and would perform it using a different laser. I had such high hopes that the results would be fantastic, and haloes would be gone. The ablation made was higher than the previous to offset the first ablation's eccentricity. The doctor used a bandage lens, which was new to me, and made the recovery a little more bearable.

As I waited for my cornea to heal, I watched my visual acuity deteriorate. Since the ablations were not centered upon each other, a small island was created right in the center of my optical zone, causing some irregular astigmatism. The haloes were improved, but the acuity was worse. A few years passed, during which I would wear one contact during all waking hours, since glasses will not work when your eyes have such different prescriptions. The contact wear started to take its toll on my eye, and it would dry out, leaving me visually impaired.

Very recently, the advent of the tracking systems promised to ensure centration of the cut, to avoid decentered ablations like my first PRK result. Friends of mine had quite good results from the doctor who performed my second surgery and he promised that an ablation on an untouched eye would be perfect, since the tracking scanning laser he had yielded excellent results, also fixing astigmatism very accurately. I had looked into these systems, and was confident that these machines were far superior to the previous generation machines. Knowing my pupils were quite large, the doctor agreed to perform an ablation which would be 7 mm in diameter. I was very excited, since I was mildly astigmatic, and this promised to correct it all.

In the following two weeks, I was not as significantly overcorrected as my very first surgery, and could see well enough to keep my hopes alive. It was not until I started to examine my vision at night that I realized something was wrong. I could make out a spiky image from one side of a streetlight which would disappear when I flashed a light in my eyes. I knew it was a halo, and only in the lower right quadrant–the ablation was off-center. I felt nauseous and crushed.

In the next two months I would go to my regular follow-up appointments and take topographies. The ablation was significantly off-center. I truly want to cry when I realize that the ablation would have been perfect if it was centered. The tracker actually picked up my pupil while off-center, and during the operation, while I centered for my life, the laser had adjusted itself to be off-center. I am still somewhat overcorrect in my right eye, making my vision one-sided, as I accommodate using my right eye.

Today, my night vision is truly crippling. I fear travelling for business, since nights are truly nightmares, driving in areas I don't know, reading signs blocked by haloes of lights around them. I now wait for the advent of topography driven ablations, or raytraced corneal analysis so I can wake up and get on with my life.