The actual procedure wasn't as exciting as my posted art made it out to be; here is a website that describes it pretty well, including a squirmworthy video:

https://webeye.ophth.uiowa.edu/eyef.....eratectomy.htm

Not that I saw or felt much (thanks to the numbing gel they used beforehand). It was basically an outpatient operation, with me sitting in the examination chair, my masked face placed in the framework ordinarily used for checking the interior of dilated eyes; Dr V placed a gadget that held my eyelids open and my eyeball in place, and then he carefully removed the cornea of of right eye. I briefly looked through my cornea-less eye and noticed how completely out of focus everything was, and then Dr V placed a Prokera over the former site, removed the frame, and taped a folded pad over my eye. Prokera is a curious item, consisting of a small quantity of placenta contained within a ring; the placenta (donated by a new mother who certainly had no further use for it, bless her) helps the healing process, leaving me marveling at the wonders of modern medicine.

Driving home afterwards was no fun, I'm not even sure how I managed it as my left eye began acting up; it wasn't helped by the fact that I live almost in Galveston County, and Dr V's office is right in the middle of town in the Texas Medical Center, and due to extensive road work several parts of the freeway didn't seem to have any lane markers.

Then followed a seemingly endless week of Itchy Eye, which I dared not touch. Over time it faded somewhat and I found that by closing both eyes and keeping them still the Itchy went away. Somewhat. Finally, one week after, I returned and Dr V removed the Prokera, had a good look at his work and declared it good, and it seems he was right. I could at any rate see more clearly with my right eye than before, or at least I didn't two or three of everything. Another week, and going in today my right eye was more thoroughly checked out and the cornea was found to have grown back more smoothly than before, though due to growth patterns it supposedly has some clouding which isn't noticeable to me.

After some discussion we decided to do the left eye next, and I'm going in Friday next week, and I'm not driving; when I left the building I saw a Yellow Cab patiently waiting for its passenger, which I take to be a Sign from on High.

One thing that kept me on my toes during all this was the fact that I know all sorts of folks who have undergone cataract surgery, and they all say its nothing, I know no one who has a Superficial Keratectomy. Now I know one, anyhow.

When I start in on my cataracts, I luckily won't have to go all the way into town, as my regular eye doctor, Dr M, has his office just down the road from here, and he can handle it there.

Ah, well...