An American in Provence

I did it peoples.
I had my eyes LASIKed on Wednesday.
Please excuse any spelling erros, I can barely see to type.
This is something that I have been thinking about for a long time and finally did to the tune of 1950€. I don't actually mind wearing contacts and glasses, but lately have been having touble with infections and stuff. So when I made my list of 101 things in 1001 days, number 23 was have LASIK done, if I am good candidate. My eye doctor, (the one who likes to torture me regulary) said that I was a good candidate, took all the measurements, and I scheduled my appointment at the Laser System downtown in Marseille. Alain came home from work and we took the metro downtown for my appointment at 13:45. The doctor arrived, we went in, I wrote the two checks, then changed into a hospital gown with booties, and went into the laser room. The technician put about a hundred drops of something in each eye to clean them. Once that was done, my left eye was covered up, and anesthesia drops xere put in my right eye. Doc says to me that he is going to "peler votre cornée" which sounds suspiciously like "peel your cornea" which is something I know I don't want.
There are some medical proceedures that you should find out all you can about so that you know excactly what will happen. This isn't one of them. It is better to not know anything, then when the doctor says that he is going to "peler votre cornée" thre is nothing you can do about it, and you can't go screaming back into the waiting room.
Also, when will doctors learn that sometimes the patient doesn't need to know exactly what is being done to them? I would have been fine with "I am going to do something to your something and it might (hurt, feel strange, etc)"
So he brought something like one of those tools at the dentist's office that spins round and round to polish your teeth and put it right on my eyeball. Another bad thing- most operations you can just close yorus eyes and not have to look at what is being done. Not with this one.
After that he removed the part that had been pele-ed, then turns off the light and tells me to not move. Trust me doc, I will do my best. The laser turned on and it was like flashes of blue light for 30 seconds.
Then that eye was done, repeat on left. Which was worse because now I KNEW what he was going to do.
When finally it was over (Alain was able to watch on a TV screen in the waiting room- I don't think he particularly wanted to. He said there were parts that he couldn't watch. Lucky! I had no choice.) I went out into the holding room and they offered something to drink. Not sure why. Anyway, I had a little tartlette and and orange juice, then changed back into my clothes and went back out. The doctor gave me a prescription for some pain killers and eye drops, and we were on our way.
Luckily Alain was with me, because I would have been still lost in the metros of Marseille.
On our way back, we went to the first pharmacy to get my eye drops. They had all but one. Great. Went to the se'cond. They didn't have it either. Went to a third. Non plus.
We finally just ordered it for the next day, but I was not a happy camper at this time. Really, they couldn't have given me the prescription ahead of time so I could get it filled before the day of the operation so that I wouldn't have to spend half an hour stumbling blindly from phamacy to pharmacy? Turns out that the drops that were missing were for the pain. Great.
Went back home, Alain closed all the shutters and left me there in the dark as he went back to work.
I had heard from someone that after about 2 hours it was all better and she was able to return to work. I am not sure if she was talking two hours Neptune time, but back here on Earth, there is no way it was all fine after two hours of Earth time. After two hours of earth time, my eyes were waking up from the anesthesia and saying "Good god woman, what DID you do to us.?!"
I felt like a lovesick teenager crying buckets of tears into my pillow in the dark.
They weren't tears of pain, though it did hurt, but just my eyes were watering watering watering.Which made my nose run. Which gave me sinus pressure.
I used an entire box of kleenex.
Not fun.
When Alain came home I put on a sleep mask in order to naviaget about our lighted apartment. I swear, our apartment is like a blind person's obstacle course. Go past the sack of cement, step over the pile of weights on the floor, go around the box of crown moulding, shuffle through the small corridor between th ecouch and the building supplies.
Really, I need to work on honing my sonar skills. Wandering around the apartment screeching Eeeee! eeee!! doesn't help and only seems to annoy Alain for some reason.