Colander of Truth

While I was under the influence of valium and vicodin, I was asked:

"I ask my patients if it is alright if I say a prayer before we begin surgery. Is that OK?"

I said "sure."

He then asked (noting that pray means ask) for the surgery to go perfect for me.

Great, no gods, angels, Jesus, pretty much like a muzak prayer, if there was one.

What would you do or say? Would you get up and walk out?

Would you say "Fuck no" and then let someone go ahead and cut your eyes up?

Would you feel pressure to just say yes 'cause you're scared he'll zap your vision away?

What about the drugs?

Personally, I was happy with his prayer, because it filled his need, and believe me, laser eye surgery is something I want done with a happy doctor, the reason why I could care less.

One note, I do have a strange side effect: Evolution is wrong! You are all deceived!

Bob

echidna

Brother in law had it, swears by it. Me ? Too lazy, can't be bothered & am already devastatingly good looking enough without driving the women into an even greater frenzy.

Walross

I had it last March, with excellent results (I can read clearly on the 20/15 line). It's worth noting, however that it is a risky procedure, and some pretty awful things can happen. After reading about some of the horror stories, I probably wouldn't have done it if I hadn't been in a low-risk category (mildly nearsighted, thick corneas, small pupils) and if I hadn't thoroughly checked my surgeon out.

Oh, and no prayer was offered, but I wouldn't have cared much if one was - no use pissing the guy off just before he cuts into your corneas .

Walross

ju'iblex

i may be having it, i dont know. I only just came back from my GP with my referral for the opthalmologist/refractive surgeon.

Hopefully, all will be fine, because i certainly cannot afford to be doing this.

something tells me i wont be getting any prayers though...

Chicken Girl

I wouldn't even be having the eye surgery in the first place. I like my glasses and contacts just fine, thank you.

atheist_in_foxhole

I wouldn't have corrective eye surgery, but if I did have it I would definitely allow the doctor to say a prayer if he wanted to. It's probably not a very good idea to tell a religious doctor that prayer is bullshit and that you're an atheist when he has a huge needle/laser aimed at your eyes.

Never

I certainly would not have this done knowing what I do now because it would seems a waste. Sure, if everything goes ok, you're vision will be improved for a while. But what happens as it changes? I know for myself and my mother - we were nearsighted as teenagers and young adults. As we grew older, the nearsightedness improved and has been continuously approching normal vision. I rarely wear my glasses at home.
What if I had had that surgery when I was young? Would I be so farsighted I'd need glasses for that now?
On another note, a girl I work with had it done and they had to redo it a time or two because her vision wasn't right. No thanks.

Loren Pechtel

I'm not comfortable with the numbers yet. It's good but it's not worth the risk. It would keep me out of reading glasses for a few more years but I'm not going to take the risk.

I certainly wouldn't refuse the prayers. Don't make the guy upset! Stress affects you no matter what.

ju'iblex

please, no horror stories and no numbers. i could really do without.

Jackalope

I keep forgetting that "corrective eye surgery" means "lasik" surgery to most people. I've had major eye surgery twice now for strabismus. That involved detatching some of the eye muscles and reattaching them at the correct spots to allow my eyes to focus on the same spot. It's also done with a laser, but the surgery is considerably more complicated.

The second surgery, I had actually misunderstood which eye they were going to operate on. I thought they were doing a revision of the first surgery on the right eye. Instead, they were going to work on the left eye in the second surgery. So while I'm there in the operating room, filled with valium, there's a conference where the surgeon asks for my charts and MAKES SURE he's doing the correct eye. I kind of muzzily decided it was good he even checked, given how most hospitals do things...

Surgery was a success, healed up fine. Still holding up almost 14 years later.

I won't go into the post-op procedure. It makes me cringe to think about it sometimes. And squeamish people start turning green. It did however ensure that the focal point placement was correct. The surgeon had a great headlock technique for it.