My instinct was right. The lenses were no good after all, in fact, it was the worst pair. Both prescriptions and fitting of the lens were not right and they made my eyes hurt and red. I’m disappointed once again. The good news is, Stan Isaacs will be coming down to KL for a conference and he will be seeing me on the 1st of May 2006. So, I’ll be keeping my lens until I see him again. Wish me luck!
Well, guess what, the 4th pair of RGP finally arrived from Australia. Phew, what a long wait. Approximately one month. I had a feeling that it’s not going to be good, I don’t know why, maybe because I’m beginning to lose hope.
So, I made a trip to see Stan Isaacs in Singapore today. I have to say that it wasn’t a very pleasant journey. I woke up at about 6.30am to find that I’m actually having a bad fever. I wanted to cancel the appointment at first but I didn’t. So, I got up from bed and took two tablets of paracetamols and continue my journey. I reached the bus station at about 7.30am and the departed at 8am sharp.
I reached Singapore’s Immigration department at around 1.30pm, but unforturnately, the line that I was queuing was damn slow. The guy at the immigration desk was working terribly slow, all the people lining up was complaining. It took me more than half an hour to get through and by the time I reached the bus terminal where my bus was supposed to wait for me there, the bus had actually left. I had to take another bus to get to town. I finally reached Queen Street and then took a cab to Stan Isaacs which is located inside the Specialist Shopping Center. Good grief, I made it on time, I reached there at 3.15pm and the appointment was set at 3pm.
I was a bit surprised to see the crowd, many parents brought their children to see Stan Isaacs, I went to the counter and registered myself, told them about the appointment. 10 minutes later , a lady optometrist brought me to a room and had my eyes measured with the corneal topography scan I guess. She put some drops on my eyes and then put on the lens for me. I didn’t feel the lens at all, she told me that it’s the eye drops that made my eyes numb. Isn’t it unhealthy to do something like that? Soon after that, I was called to Stan’s room. He looked at my eyes and told me that the lens are a little bit too big and he will make some holes in them to make them breathe. Whatever it is, it better be good. Took me all day to reach here just to see him for only a few minutes. Great! So, I left the shop at about 4pm, went to the shopping mall across the street and had my late lunch.
I went to the MRT station and asked the local quirks for some directions on how to return back to KL. They told me the cheapest way is to travel to Kranji by MRT and take a bus to Johor Larkin. Then from there, I can take the express bus back to KL. I felt very tired, exhausted and a bit dizzy. I took another two paracetamol and continue my trip.
I reached the immigration department and then rushed to the terminal, again the bus had left without me. People there didn’t seem to be very friendly. Greedy taxi drivers came to seek their opportunities on poor souls like me. I had no choice but to take their offer. It cost me 10 bucks just to travel from the immigration to Larkin bus station which is very near.
I reached Larkin at about 5.30pm, went straight to the ticket counter and bought myself the 6pm ticket. Grabbed a hotdog from one of the stalls there and went straight onto the bus. As the bus moves, and the sky was turning dark, I gazed at the street lamps seeing terrible starbursts, haloes, glares, doubles and floaters. At that point of my life, I really feel lonely, sad and depressed. I can’t stop but wonder why I get myself into all these troubles. What will happen to me in the future..?
Sigh… A night that I will never forget…
Today is my birthday. I left the office at 5.30pm sharp and went to BL Optometrist to get my contact lens that I need to bring along to see Stan Isaacs on Saturday.
My birthday wish is the same as my last year’s wish which is able to see clear again.
So I went to BL Optometrist againt today to have a check on the fitting. It seems the result is no good, therefore making the trip to see Dr.Stan Isaacs is a must. I have returned the lens and made an appointment to see Stan Isaacs on the 18th of March 2006.
I received an SMS from BL optometrist informing me that my RGP lens already arrived. I went there and picked them up. Try them on, and they still didn’t fit well. Right eye is a little bit too tight and left eye rocks a lot, doesn’t stay on the center resulting a lot of funny reflections around the edge of the lens.
Madam Low told me to visit Dr. Stan Isaacs in Singapore , so I guess , I have to start planning for the trip.
36 days, I’ve waited for 36 days and my RGP lens still haven’t arrived yet. No, I’ve waited for three months actually because I did order on the 21st of November 2005. It’s true that patience is a virtue, but I’ve been waiting for months. How many months do you have in your whole life?
Okay, enough of my ramblings. Over the past few months, I’ve actually received quite a few emails from fellow Malaysians asking me questions about LASIK. I’m quite happy because this means more people are aware of the risks and hopefully people will do more research before they opt for a LASIK surgery. Anyway, I plan to do a major revamp to my site and turn it into a full blog. This way, I can keep on updating my site daily with various info not only for LASIK, but also other eye related issues.
It’s time to write again, I received my 2nd pair of my RGPs yesterday after 16 days of waiting.
Left Eye : The vision is almost perfect, I can ALMOST see 20/20 but nevermind, I’m quite happy with it. The important thing is, it’s comfortable. According to my optometrist, it’s a little bit too tight. This is no good because there will be no tears exchange between the cornea and the lens. I find it a bit hard to take the lens out too.
Right Eye : Still bad, not only higher prescription is needed but also uncomfortable. When I look in the mirror, I noticed that the lens doesn’t fit on the centre again. This time around, the lens tends to move to the right. I feel pain and discomfortable everytime I blink and close my eyes. This is definately not good enough.
Experience: I’ve been wearing them for 4 hours last night. When I reached home, the first thing I did was switching off the light in my room and turned on my pc. Usually, I will see terrible STARBURSTS of my modem’s blinking yellow LED. To my surprise, I don’t see the starbursts from the LEDs anymore. Then, I started watching one of my DVDs with the subtitles ON. WOW! No more DOUBLE VISION! I was very happy.
Today, I tried them again for more than 8 hours. I started wearing the lenses after lunch. I felt very irritated on my right eye. I can’t stop blinking and looking at the mirror. Something was definately wrong with it. I went bowling with my colleagues after work. On my way back, I carefully observed my surroundings, I looked at all the lights around the train station and the busy roads. I felt disappointed. I noticed that the starbursts from car headlights are still very large. In fact, they were like much bigger and clearer with the lens. The further the distance, the bigger the starbursts. I’m feeling a little bit sad after finding out that RGPs can’t really solve all the problems after all….. Anyway, I still need to wear them as they reduced more than 70% of the higher order abberrations.
I have an appointment with BL Optometrist tomorrow. I’m going to report what happened today and yesterday and return the lenses to them. I hope they can get the new lens ready before Chinese New Year… Till then…
The LASIK center gave me a call on Friday and said they will be giving me RM2000 only instead of the full RM3000. At the beginning, they gave me an impression that they will fully subsidize my first pair of RGP lens. Now, they are telling me a different story. No reason was given when I asked them. How would you feel if you are being treated this way? Don’t forget, I need to change these expensive lenses every year (provided they don’t get lost or cracked and my vision doesn’t regress rapidly)! Imagine if I have fork out RM3000 (not including the contact lens solutions) every year!! It’s crazy!! This is not the point because I knew I’ll have to suffer this curse, but the point is, they didn’t keep their promise and I feel cheated.
Well, I just got back from Genting Highlands. On my way back, I went to BL Optometrist again to see Madam Low for a quick eye check-up. I explained briefly on how I felt yesterday. When I was wearing the lenses, I feel uncomfortable, especially on my right eye. It turned red after 6 hours of wearing. When I looked at the mirror, I noticed that the lens on my right eye didn’t fit properly, it shifted a little bit down to the bottom, that’s why I don’t see clear on the top part of my vision. I can’t complain much about my left eye although I feel a little bit itchy on the upper lid. It’s still tolerable I guess.
According to Madam Low, although I felt ok on my left eye, she said it’s actually too tight and that’s not good for the cornea. So she wanted to loosen the fitting on the left eye slightly. For the right eye, she had to do modification as well so it will be centered nicely on my pupil. She doesn’t allow me to wear the lenses, so I had to return them. And if everything goes fine, I should be able to get a new pair of lens next week. Wish me luck!