I'll See You When I Fall Asleep

I've been at work for about 14 hours now.  It has been a good day; we have had pizza delivered, we don't have any rooms going right now, and I'm making time-and-a-half at the moment.  We normally have two scrub techs working at night, but they both called in sick.  And since I am on-call, I am here.  It's actually a really good night for me to stay, because a) Tollene (Allen's mother) is staying with us for a couple of weeks, b) I'm short on my hours for the week because of the holiday, c) it's nice to be paid to blog and check my e-mail, and d) I'm (hopefully!) getting LASIK done tomorrow, after which I have been told I need to sleep it off.  So since I'm planning on sleeping most of the day anyway, I hope that being up most of the night won't be so bad.

About LASIK . . . here's the story.  Every year, Allen takes out a fair amount of money in his flexible spending account at work.  This money is "use it or lose it," so you don't want to take out too much.  We always said that if we had enough money left over at the end of the year, I could get LASIK. Usually, we only have a few hundred dollars left, so I get new glasses and call it good.  This year, we have around $2400 left over.  While that's good--no major illnesses or surgeries or doctor's visits this year--that's a lot of money to lose on December 31st.  So, in early December (while trying not to get my hopes up too high; you never know what will happen!), I start calling around to see if I can get an appointment.  Once place I called was totally booked.  Another place was so busy they kept me on hold for at least 10 minutes.  So, I called Hoopes Vision.  I had heard their ads on the radio many times, and my brother Dave had his eyes corrected by them earlier this year, with fantastic results.  Not only did they answer my call right away, but they had *one* appointment available before the end of the year.  I took it, and went through all the testing and scans and stuff (my eyes have never had such a workout--I had an incredible headache by the end!).  They said I would qualify, but it would cost around $2,000 per eye.  I was not expecting to have to pay that much, but I also didn't want to waste all that money.  So we scheduled the right eye for December 28th, and the left eye for early January.  I went home and argued talked about it with Allen, and we decided to just do it.  Merry Christmas to me!

I'm excited, and a little nervous.  I hope my eyes aren't too bloodshot from working tonight.  I hope my family is healthy for at least the next few days, because I feel guilty about using up the rest of the flex-spending money.  I'm annoyed that I'll still have to wear glasses (I'll have to replace my right lens with a clear lens); no contacts for the past couple of weeks and I haven't worn makeup for several days.

I hate not wearing makeup.  It is a little liberating, but I feel so much better about myself when I look nice.

*   *   *   *   *

Update: it's now 6:13am, and I have been at work for 19+ hours now (regular 12-hour shift + 8-hour on-call shift).  We didn't do any cases last night (miracle!), so I got to rest a little bit.  Here's hoping the next time I write my vision will be halfway greatly improved!