All I had wanted were glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling.

            But my ceiling stayed bare for ten years. Having been nearsighted –or myopic—since the age of nine, there was no point to having stars that I could not see at night, stars that simply faded into the darkness that I saw without the aid of my glasses.

            I developed myopia because of my intense love for reading. I would read three books a day, and buy a new one every week. Many years later, I read about a study that said children from the ages 6-8 are more likely to develop myopia if they read more than two books a week. Had I known about this study when I was that age, I would have taken much better care of my eyes.

            But on the contrary,  I became more enthralled with reading, and the grade of my eyes grew steadily by the

hundreds each year. As each year passed, it became harder and harder to focus on objects that were far away.

Eventually, people’s faces blurred into a mess of dents and protuberances on a flesh plane, and I could no longer

recognize people without the aid of my glasses. If I couldn’t see people, how much more could I see glow-in-the-dark

stars in my own night sky?

As much as I wanted to wear contact lenses instead, I couldn’t because my eyes were prone to the growth of styes, or in Filipino, kuliti. Wearing contact lenses would only aggravate the condition, and would subject me to numerous operations just to get rid of them. Thus, I became resigned to my condition, thinking that I would wear glasses forever.

Until I heard of laser eye surgery. When it first came to the Philippines through the American Eye Correction Center, most people were apprehensive about it, as they always are about new technologies and discoveries. The main risk of undergoing laser eye surgery was becoming blind after something goes wrong with the operation. Laser eye surgery also meant putting a lot of trust put into the hands of the doctors, as you just basically sat there and let them fiddle with your eye using a laser. And in a country where the word “operation” always came together with “hospital check-in”, it didn’t seem comprehensible that you could go home right after the operation, and that you could see immediately after. Because of this, laser eye surgery did not gain instant popularity.

However, years later, showbiz personalities and business executives swore by the wonders of laser eye surgery. This publicity made more people curious about the procedure, and it was slowly becoming a viable alternative to getting rid of eyeglasses. More clinics opened in reputable hospitals, such as Vision Laser Center located at St. Luke’s Medical Center, and the Makati Eye Laser Center. Newspapers also came out with articles on how the procedure was actually done, in order to entice readers to consider the procedure as an answer to their eye problems.

I was not one of those readers. In fact, I refused to read the articles on laser eye surgery because I just didn’t want to get my hopes up about a procedure I knew I would never undergo. For one thing, although it had become more popular, it was still reputed to be very expensive. For another, the risk still remained: I could still go blind.

I don’t really know how, but things changed in May 2002. Suddenly, I found myself going to St. Luke’s Medical Center to inquire about laser eye surgery, and whether I was a candidate for it. I was 19 years old at the time, and I met the surgery’s minimum age requirement of 18 years. My eyesight had been stable for two years, and this was well above the required stable refraction of at least six months. The logic in this was that the surgery would not be effective if the grade of your eyes was still fluctuating, as it would continue to fluctuate even after the surgery. So upon expressing the desire to put an end to a decade of wearing eyeglasses, and upon meeting the said requirements, I was officially on my way to undergoing laser eye surgery.

There are two kinds of laser eye surgery: Photo-Refractive Keratectomy (PRK) and Laser-Assisted in situ Keratomileusis (LASIK). The main difference between the two is that LASIK creates a microflap or a superficial layer on the eye’s cornea using an instrument known as a microkeratome. The cornea is the part of the eye that acts like a second lens and helps focus light onto the retina, which then converts the light to electric signals that the brain needs to form the pictures we see. In my case, being nearsighted meant that the light my eyes were receiving was focused in front of my retina because the corneal curve was too steep. What the surgery does, then, is to flatten the corneal curve. LASIK creates the microflap first before the laser proceeds to trim away the excess tissue and flatten the corneal curve. When this is over, the flap is then replaced and, as it dries, it rebonds with the rest of the cornea. In contrast, PRK does not create a microflap and instead proceeds directly to the flattening of the cornea. This is a more painful procedure and takes longer to heal than LASIK.

Because of this, LASIK is the more popular type of surgery. Aside from being less painful, it is also a quicker procedure, taking only fifteen minutes per eye. Together with all the preparations, the entire operation takes only an hour.

The surgery I was to undergo was LASIK, and I was scheduled for 11:00 a.m. of May 24, 2002, less than two weeks after I had first gone to the clinic. I was at the clinic at 10:30 a.m., but I was attended to at 1:00 p.m. First, a liquid anesthetic was dropped into my eyes to numb them for surgery. The doctor then used water-soluble ink to mark the cornea of my eyes to guide the repositioning of the flap that he would create.

A few minutes later, I was brought into the operating room and was told to lie down. They strapped me down to the bed, explaining that it was very important that I didn’t move, twitch, fidget, or anything. If I was asked a question, I was to answer with words, and not with a nod or the shake of the head. Although I wanted to laugh at these reminders, I realized how instinctive it would be to just nod instead of saying “Yes” loud and clear. So I took these reminders seriously and made sure I didn’t move a muscle throughout the surgery.

A suction ring was placed into my eye to hold it steady, and the platform for the microkeratome –the instrument that would create the microflap—was put into place. I was warned that I would feel some pressure and that my vision would dim a little. This pressure was applied to make the eye firm enough to cut cleanly. The entire time that my vision was dimmed, the microkeratome was cutting through my cornea to create the microflap, with an uncut portion serving as a hinge. The suction was turned off, the microkeratome removed, and my vision returned. The doctor then “opened” the flap, and I could see two lights directly above me, one red and one green. He told me that the green light was where the laser would be coming from, and the red light aligned my eyes to the laser. Therefore, I should keep my eye on the red light only. The excimer laser then did its work and flattened my cornea, after which the flap was closed, and the entire procedure was repeated on my other eye. It was all over in an hour.

Immediately after the operation, I felt as though I had opened my eyes underwater. Everything was hazy, and I was told that I should sleep the minute I get home because the anesthesia would begin to wear off then. So I slept the entire afternoon and woke up in time for dinner. And the first sight that greeted me were the words on my whiteboard. Words I could read. Finally.

However, there were many conditions and restrictions immediately after the operation. For a week after the surgery, I had to sleep with a visor on, so that I wouldn’t accidentally scratch my eyes in my sleep. I couldn’t take a bath for three days because my eyes could not get wet. I had to be very careful about my surroundings because I couldn’t let dust get into my eyes. Even weeks after the surgery, my eyes were still sensitive to light, as everything seemed extra-bright and fluorescent bulbs looked like they had halos.

But these restrictions were temporary, and the after-effects faded away eventually. I could see normally after that, and many changes have happened since then. I got the haircut that I could never have because they didn’t fit with my glasses. I lost the dents on the bridge of my nose. And of course, I got my glow-in-the-dark stars.

It’s now March, and I go back to the doctor in two months. That will be one year since I had the operation. I’m pretty sure that he’ll still tell me I have 20/20 eyesight, just as he’s told me in my past visits. But I know that twenty years from now, I’ll still be a normal person who’ll have trouble reading the fine print. Age will catch up with me, and along with it all the related eye problems.

But I’ll worry about that when the time comes. For now, I’d just to lie back in my bed and stare at my ceiling, thanking God everyday that I can finally see the stars.