When Injured, Get LASIK

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When life gives you a pubic ramus stress fracture, get LASIK.

I was planning to get LASIK this year for a number of reasons. Unsurprisingly, one of those reasons had to do with running.

A couple years ago, an eye doctor told me my eyes weren’t getting enough oxygen when I wore contacts, so she told me that to keep my eyes healthy, I needed to restrict my contact wearing to just 3-4 days a week. That meant every week I had to plan when I was going to wear contacts around my running schedule. I didn’t mind easy runs in my glasses, but workouts and long runs were another story.

Another issue: I didn’t have prescription running sunglasses. So if it was really sunny out there, I was out of lucky, because my normal prescription sunglasses made me feel dizzy when running (I have no idea why!). I was tired of it, so I decided I needed to take the plunge. The bigger reason for why now: I finished paying off my student loans last year, so it was now more economically feasible.

My original plan was to schedule my LASIK procedure after the Grandma’s Marathon, because you are advised not to exercise for 1-2 weeks after the procedure. Eye surgery sounds like a good recovery activity, right?

Then I was diagnosed with a pubic ramus stress fracture. That meant Grandma’s was out the window. And it meant no exercise at all for a few weeks. I figured, if I can’t exercise because of my hip, I might as well kill two birds with one stone and also get eye surgery (totally normal, right?). Two days after my diagnosis, I scheduled my surgery for March 15 (4 weeks and 2 days post-diagnosis).

A week after the procedure, I couldn’t be happier. The surgery itself went relatively smoothly after the Valium kicked in (unfortunately that was like 5 minutes into the 15 minute procedure). It was a little terrifying when they first put pressure on my eye to create the corneal flap and my vision went black, but thankfully, that only lasted a few seconds.

The whole thing was over remarkably fast, and the recovery process has been remarkably smooth. Immediately after the procedure my left eye felt entirely normal, like nothing had been done to it at all. My right eye, on the other hand, felt somewhat strained and like it had an eyelash in it, a very common side effect. Now, my right eye still feels strained from time to time, but other than that, it feels largely normal.

As I suspected, the procedure was good for my stress fracture, as well. I spent almost two whole days just hanging out in bed listening to podcasts. Hopefully that helped my body build up new bone while it also allowed my eyes to rest and recover.

For now, I just have to stick to my eye drops and continue to rest my hip, but I can’t wait to see what it is like to exercise with perfect vision. It is sure to be a magical experience.