Lasik and the Life of the Unemployed

Well, my one-week post-lay-off vacation is over. I'm actually unemployed. Soon I'll be shopping at the Homeless Depot that my [employed] friend Ed referred me to. Very funny, Eddie!

When my dad asked me why I was only "kinda" on vacation last week, I had to explain to him that on real vacations you can spend money. On unemployed vacations the only luxury you can afford is relaxation (that is, if you can get the job-hunting worries out of your mind long enough to relax). So basically I did yard work, got caught up on chores, went to the gym, took walks, washed the car, increased my LinkedIn.com contacts ten-fold (I got caught up with dozens of old colleagues online!), and looked at job postings.

Then today I drove to Rockville to see another TLC Lasik surgeon regarding my botched Lasik eye surgery of February 2nd. This guy is both a doctor and the Director, whom I was sent to by a TLC Vice President--finally, after all these months of blurred vision. This Director is the first doctor at TLC who actually showed tremendous concern and a willingness to diagnose and determine a correction for the problem that TLC created.

Sure enough, my left eye has a de-centered ablation. The Director confirmed that for me today. This means that the laser machine was off-center when the laser surgery was performed. The odds of this happening with today's Lasik procedures are virtually nil. It was much more common 15 years ago with the older methods of corrective surgery.

The Director was honest with me, he doesn't understand how this could have happened--not to mention, why it only happened in one eye, and why none of the other patients that day suffered the same outcome.

So it's a big mystery. I'm a medical mystery. It's just one thing after another. But this Director-doctor has a brain and a willingness to investigate. I was impressed with his genuine concern and effort. A number of tests were performed on me today, and this guy spent more time with me in one visit than all the other TLC doctors have spent with me combined (since February).

It's possible that they can temporarily correct my left eye with a hard contact lens - which will feel strange, but if it helps me to see, I'll get used to the discomfort. The right eye needs further correction, but it's not as bad as the left. As to whether the left can be surgically corrected, that remains to be seen. We shall see.

Now, back to the job search. . . .