Long time readers or people who actually know me know that just over a year ago I randomly developed a “recurrent corneal erosion” in my right eye, which basically means that at random times, especially when my eye gets really dried out, the outer later of cells sloughs right off the surface, resulting in pain and preventing me from wearing contacts, as my outer cornea sticks to the contact better than it does to itself. I’m going through the process of fixing this right now. Yesterday was my evaluation by a corneal specialist. I’m going to paste my IM-conversation account of everything I went through:

(9:51:49 PM) Graeme Hefner: Here’s everything that happened to me today.
(9:52:02 PM) Graeme Hefner: Followed by everything that will happen to me in a few weeks, maybe.
(9:52:15 PM) Graeme Hefner: Went to the doctor, waited in the waiting room from hell for an hour.
(9:52:22 PM) Graeme Hefner: Yay Crawford Long and children doing cartwheels.
(9:52:27 PM) Graeme Hefner: Then they finally called me back.
(9:52:49 PM) Graeme Hefner: And photographed my retinas and corneas from all kinds of angles that involved me poking my head into machines.
(9:53:28 PM) Graeme Hefner: Then I got the numbing drops, and they pulled out this lovely sterile stick-like measuring instrument, which was then rolled across my cornea while I valiantly attempted to stare straight ahead.
(9:53:50 PM) Graeme Hefner: The numbing drops had the interesting side effect of numbing the outside of my eye yet making them both burn like shit.
(9:54:10 PM) Graeme Hefner: Then I went back to the back for not normal dilation, but hyper dilation, involving three drops of increasingly clandestine nature.
(9:54:20 PM) Graeme Hefner: One of which had to be metered out by a dropper old school style.
(9:54:24 PM) Graeme Hefner: Glass dropper and vial.
(9:54:35 PM) Graeme Hefner: Then I was high-intensity lighted and examined further.
(9:54:39 PM) Graeme Hefner: By this point I can’t see shit.
(9:54:44 PM) Graeme Hefner: And my time is coming to an end.
(9:55:03 PM) Graeme Hefner: Here’s the rub: my aberration really isn’t that bad, but the Muro couldn’t clear it up, so we had two options.
(9:55:39 PM) Graeme Hefner: A paste-like lubricant applied to the eye nightly along with a stronger non-steroid anti-inflammatory in the morning and night, which will burn worse than my 1,000% salt drops used to.
(9:55:42 PM) Graeme Hefner: And involves paste.
(9:55:57 PM) Graeme Hefner: If, after two weeks, that doesn’t fix it up, I get PRK.
(9:57:00 PM) Graeme Hefner: Because while they’re in there, he said they might as well fix my myopia. Even though my prescription hasn’t been stable that long the fact that I’m in my early 20s, my eyes are crazy healthy otherwise (and other than this), and my corneas are perfect shaped, I’m a good candidate. Also, since it’s PRK, it can be touched-up later, since it doesn’t involve burning flaps like LASIK.
(9:58:22 PM) Graeme Hefner: It was a hell of a day.
(9:58:48 PM) Graeme Hefner: I finally got home around 6:00 after a hardcore rainstorm and getting my $46.00 prescription eye drops.
(9:59:03 PM) Graeme Hefner: That’s after my prescription drug benefit.