I’m jealous. I won’t lie, I’m insanely jealous. My lucky wife now no longer has to fight with contact lenses in the morning, complain as Jessica tries to grab the spectacles off her face for the umpteenth time, and can now simply go for an afternoon nap or dive eyes-open into the sea – without first removing her lenses! In other words, she can see clearly now, without any mechanical aid whatsoever.

Lucky wifey.

On Wednesday she had Photorefractive Keratectomy (PRK) (similar to LASIK) eye surgery at the hands of Bellville-based Dr. Hartog and The Cape Eye Hospital. Although still fairly expensive at R13,000, the operation has come down in price a lot over the years since its adoption over here in South Africa, and seeing as my bonus from last year was just enough to cover the operation, combined with the fact that Chantelle’s eyes had now well and truly rejected contact lenses, we thought it the right thing to have done (instead of our initial plan of installing a dishwasher. Sigh.)

The initial consultation at the beginning of the month indicated that Chantelle was a prime candidate for either PRK or LASIK surgery, though the scheduled operation itself had to be shifted back a bit after the doctor discovered some holes at the back of her eyeballs that had to be lasered closed and allowed to heal first, before the main procedure could take place.

Anyway, after all of that had healed up, the 22nd of February finally rolled in and Chantelle tucked Jessica under her arm and moved back to her parent’s place in Bellville for the next five or six nights, where they could assist her in travelling to and from the hospital (situated near my old high school, namely The Settlers High), as well as look after Jessica for the couple of days directly after the op where Chantelle wouldn’t be able to really tolerate any light, thus rendering her as useful as a baby kitten for the next little while.

Happily, the operation on the day was a success, with about fifteen minutes in total spent for what was a very uncomfortable sensation (and not so great a smell), but with the fantastic result of being able to step out of the offices and immediately see a world sans the blurriness that usually accompanies not wearing eyeglasses or contact lenses! :)

However, her sense of wonder didn’t get too long to be ignited, as it quickly became apparent that even the smallest amount of light currently hurts her eyes, and she is actually in quite a lot of pain thanks to what is technically an open wound, combined with heavy headaches that have pretty much forced her into bed for the moment – sunglasses on and all the curtains drawn closed naturally!

However, despite this little period of recovery that needs to be ridden out, she’s pretty excited for things to get better quickly, because we’ve been told that in a month or so, “Sharp-eyed Chantelle” will be well and truly back in action! ;)

Lucky wifey! :P