Brief history

I have been wearing glasses for the longest time. Since fourth grade - when I was about eight years old, though I believe I had probably needed glasses even before that :-). I had myopia (short sightedness).

As is the case with myopia, as I grew older, my eyesight "power" (which is how the refractive error is referred to colloquially) grew with me. By the time I reached high school, the "power" in my eyes had stabilized to around -6.00 in each eye. In the first year of undergrad college, it was deemed okay for me to start wearing contact lenses.

Though it took a little getting used to, I was soon proficient at slipping contact lenses in and out, cleaning them, taking the whole paraphernalia whenever I went anywhere. I loved my contact lenses and the wider view of the world they afforded.

Four years later, I was set to leave for the United States. That was when it struck my parents and me that probably would be the best time for me to get the Lasik procedure done so I could be free of the nuisance of contact lenses. However, a little bit of research and talking around convinced us that considering I was going to a foreign country, it probably was not the best time for me to go after a eye surgery (however minor it would be) in case there were any post surgery complications.

So though I had already done a battery of eye tests at the Aggarwal Eye Institute in Chennai and had been deemed as a "good" candidate for Lasik surgery, I decided to forgo the procedure at that time.

Fast forward six years to 2007. I was visiting India for a four week vacation. On the second day of my vacation, my mom suddenly came up with the idea that I should probably get my Lasik surgery done that time since I would have enough "healing time" during that vacation as compared to my other shorter duration vacations.

The ball was set rolling.