When I was twelve, my father and I went to go watch a baseball game, and I couldn’t read the scoreboard. Not coincidentally, this was also when I found out I had no taste in glasses. It may not have helped that there was a glut of aviator-style glasses. Oh well. Two months ago, I went to to see if I was eligible for Lasik (now that I had a pile of money). Short answer was yes, and I came away with my own superpower.

Long answer is my prescription was up three-quarters of a diopter to -5.5 in both eyes. Because contacts can alter the shape of your cornea, he said ditching them for a couple weeks would give a more realistic result. Afterwards, my doctor examined my eyes after temporarily paralysing my lens with cycloplegic eyedrops. With my active focusing out of the way, my corneal prescription was down to -5.0 in both eyes. Right where he predicted, so onward to Lasik!

I went in for my appointment, filled out some paperwork and took the Valium they offered me (I guess they offer it to everyone, not just the ones that look like a caged animal). For my custom Lasik, I needed a wavefront map of my eye, which basically shoots a flat sheet of light into your eye, and sees where it’s warped upon reflection. More precision in measuring = more precision in correcting. Wavefront mapping now allows Lasik to correct astigmatism, which I fortunately don’t have.

The squeamish among you might want to stop reading right now.

Lasik involves two basic steps: making a thin flap on your cornea, and vaporizing corneal material underneath.

Normally, your eye is held perfectly still by a vacuum ring, and the flap is cut by a motorized blade called a microkeratome. I won’t bother you with any of the problems, but if there is a problem, your appointment ends, and you go home to heal for two months before they try again. Not on the top of my list.

My friend Moritz told me his professor worked on a less arcane method of cutting this flap: using a femtosecond laser (a.k.a. Nd:YAG laser). The procedure can be stopped and restarted with little difficulty – you can sit in the waiting room for about twenty minutes before starting again. I asked if this was available, and since it was (laser provided by Intralase), I—being vastly relieved no knives were involved—was quick to pay the extra money.

The flap cutting was quick and painless (your eyes are totally numb), though I wouldn’t call it comfortable, per se. They attach what can only be called a vacuum-powered docking device of some sort to your eye. Along with some vacuum-related dimming of vision, the experience was not unlike having your eye abducted by aliens: a large device with two brilliant rings of LEDs comes down over your eye and, well, docks with your eye. Eighteen seconds later, you’re done, and you get the procedure done on the other eye.

I should note at this point that my vision was not only blurry as usual, but hazy. The Intralase system creates a continuous spiral of micron-wide bubbles in your cornea – just close enough together that the flap can be separated easily.

Afterwards, I was walked into the other room, and so began the actual Lasik. After laying down and having my head immobilized with a form-fitting pillow (and another round of numbing eyedrops), the doctor propped open one eye, and began lifting the flap. No sensations at all this time, just a close-up view of gloves, metal and whatnot. Slightly unnerving, but by this time the valium had me firmly in its grasp.

Next task: look at a blinking red light (which, to me, was a blinking red blob). I heard this electric *snap* *snap* *snap* like a tiny Tesla coil discharging in the air. My sister and my girlfriend were both present, and they said that on the monitor, they could see my eye… well… smoking. The scent is not unlike burning hair, but I’ve been a little kid armed with candles and matches before, so it didn’t really throw me off.

The doctor smoothed down the flap, and then repeated the process on the next eye, and I was done.

At this point things were still hazy, but no longer blurry. It was like looking at the world through some sort of glamour filter. The first hour after the surgery while I was waiting at the pharmacy for eyedrops was the worst: my eyes burned something fierce. Cure? A 3 hour nap. Oh sure, some eyedrops probably helped, but the nap was great. After the nap, I woke up and discovered the initial haze had gone away almost completely. I went outside, and watched the stars come out for the first time unassisted in 18 years.

The current state of things, five weeks later? My vision is fantastic. I’m at least 20/20 in both eyes, The haze has since cleared up totally and the burning is nonexistant. My eyes are beginning to water normally on their own; the nerves responsible are largely severed when the flap is made, they just take a while to reconnect/regrow. I have two side effects, which I’m assured will go away during the three to six-month healing process: a slight glow around bright objects – one could think of it as slightly excessive light bloom; the other is my new super power.

Ok, it’s not a super power. Because of the microscopic concentric steps the laser took off, I have what amounts to diffraction grating in my eye. A set of eight tiny rainbows, arranged at the edges and corners of a square. Those familiar with diffraction grating will know exactly what I mean. I only see them around bright, point light sources in a dark area. But what’s interesting is because diffraction grating splits up light into its component wavelengths, I can tell what colors are more prevalent in various light sources. Not all white lights are created equal. I’m a human spectrometer.