See-Far Day

Yesterday I finally went in for LASIK surgery. I chose to have both eyes fixed for distance rather than mono vision, which would focus one eye far and one eye near. I think that would drive me crazy.

The Procedure

After five or six weeks of doctor visits to have my corneas measured and waiting for them to stabilize after having worn gas-permeable contacts for 20 years--hard lenses distort the corneas--Chieko and I drove up to the Cowboy Partners building, where we entered on the 1st floor and went down two floors to the 3rd floor, which is where the TLC Laser Center is. (The building is on the side of a hill with the entrance up the hill on Wasatch Blvd and the third floor down the hill facing Big Cottonwood Canyon Road but with no entrance there).

I signed a stack of forms that said I understood all the things that could possibly go wrong--about three pages worth.

The nurse put some iodine-like sticky brown goop on my eyelids and around my eyes, dropped anesthetic in each eye, and asked if I wanted Valium. I declined. At 9:30 a.m. I walked into the laser room, lay on a bed, and Dr. Ballif clamped something around my right eye to hold the eyelid and lower eyelid open and stuck a suction ring on the eye to hold the cornea firm. The eye was numb, but it felt like he was pushing my eyeball into my brain--not really painful, but quite a bit of pressure.

He then positioned me so my eye was under the intralase machine and told me to focus on the red light. After about 15 seconds, some beeps, and a ring of white dots that disappeared one by one, my right cornea had a flap cut into it. I was going to go with having the flap cut with a blade (keratome) but changed my mind at the last minute, even though the laser cost about $1,200 more. It just seemed safer than a blade. While the machine was cutting, everything went fuzzy, then black, then somewhat into focus again. To cut the flap, the laser created bubbles about 150 micrometres deep (about 1-1/2 hair widths deep). The doctor then used what looked like, from my fuzzy point of view, a pair of tweezers to peel the flap back.

(Not my eye, but I suppose it looked like this.)

He then positioned my eye under a machine on the other side of me and told me to focus on a little light and not to move.

This laser machine burned away the parts of the cornea that I don't need (I hope). It's supposed to be a "cool laser," but I could smell the tissue burning away. Then the doctor brushed the flap back down with what looked like, from my point of view, a little paint brush. The whole time the nurse was cheering, "Don't move. You're doing great."

Then they replicated the procedure on my left eye. Chieko watched the procedure via a monitor in the next room. I wish I had a video. I was in the laser room less than 15 minutes.

The doctor checked my eyes using a machine in the monitor room, the nurse taped plastic grasshopper bubbles over my eyes for protection, and Chieko drove me home. Everything was a bit milky looking, but I could see okay.

The Results

I wore the plastic bubbles for the rest of the day and through the night and have to wear them for the next five nights. I also had to drop steroids in my eyes every hour yesterday and antibiotics four times, as well as artificial tears throughout the day. The steroids and antibiotics continue for seven days, and the tears for up to six months. For the first two hours, my eyes watered constantly and the light was uncomfortable. I listened to the TV with my eyes closed until about noon. My eyes were pretty comfortable after that, except for the stupid plastic bubbles. I watched TV until bedtime. I have to be careful for at least a week and actually longer not to bump my eyes or let anything get into them. Besides the possibility of infection, the 150-micrometre flaps can wrinkle. That would be a bad thing.

I noticed in the afternoon that everything in my right eye from TV distance (about 10 feet) to infinity was very clear, but my left eye saw everything fuzzy. Today I went in for my follow up with Dr. Masihdas, and my right eye is seeing 20/20, while my left eye is less than 20/40. He said this is normal, that the corneas are swollen, and they'll take a week or maybe even a few weeks to recover. Then we can test my vision. It is possible that I'll have to do a follow-up on the left eye--there was a guy in the center yesterday having a follow up done. The second time, they don't have to recut the flap, just lift it.

I really like that I can see to drive, hike, whatever, without contacts or glasses. The problem is, I can't see anything up close. I can hardly read my watch. I can't see the computer monitor. I couldn't read the menu at Suehiro. And it doesn't help to bring the objects closer. I can read the speedometer in the Tahoe, but it's a strain to read the time on the radio display.

I bought some reading glasses at Target, three pairs for $11. They're ok for reading the price on a menu, but they make the computer keyboard look like it's ergonomically curved when it's not, and the flat monitor looks like the curved screen at the movie theater. An hour of working like that gave me a serious headache. I then bought reading glasses from Costco, three pairs for $18, that have aspheric lenses to "reduce eyestrain and fatigue" and "prevent distortion." They're actually better, but objects in the edges still bend. And what junior high design class styles these ugly things?

Anyway, that's my report so far. I'll have to wait until my eyes settle down, I get a pair of decent computer and reading glasses, and I get used to seeing what I couldn't see and not seeing what I could before I decide whether it was worth the cost and permanence.

Moose

I set up a comfortable camp chair at my favorite beaver-pond-viewing spot and sat for a couple hours. The ponds look abandoned, even though I saw beavers in them a couple months ago.

After a nap I saw these two moose venturing cautiously from the trees. They came down to the creek, walked a short way to the south along the creek, and suddenly headed back into the trees. I never figured out what spooked them, of maybe they just came for a quick drink of water.

This moose was along the highway (she also had a calf with her). She's whistling "The Fishing Hole" (the theme to "The Andy Griffith Show").

Living Planet Aquarium

Today we went to the Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy with Sara, Jared, Jackson, Tanner, Elliot, and Mei. We were impressed with the aquarium. I expected that an aquarium built in an old Safeway store in the middle of the Utah desert would be lame at best. But this aquarium is really nice.

They have sharks.

And real sharks.

Sting rays that you can pet. They're silky smooth.

Brine shrimp from the Great Salt Lake.

Fish from South America.

The foursome. We all had a fun day.

Lake Blanche Hike

The sign at the bottom of Lake Blanche says the trail is 2.8 miles. That's a lie. It's 3.5 miles (I hiked 7.15 miles total), and about a 2,700-foot climb. I'm glad I took a water filter, because I finished my water off at about 2.5 miles (thinking I was almost to the top). The temperature was in the upper 90s, maybe 99.

You can see the scrapes on this rock at the top of the trail, I assume from an old glacier. The rock wall in the background is the east dam of Lake Blanche.

This is the lake. It's actually a little reservoir with a dam on both ends. If you're looking for a killer workout with a nice view at the end, this lake works. If you're looking for a nice hike and a great view, I think Cecret Lake above Alta is a better choice. By the way, some hikers coming down when I was going up said there had been a moose at the lake when they were there. It was gone by the time I arrived.

Just to show that I actually hiked all the way to the lake. My GPS said this is about 8,600 feet, which is about the same altitude or higher than the base of Brighton and Alta. It's like hiking from the S-curve to Brighton but straight up. Do I look tired?

This is part of the trail. It looks innocent enough, because this isn't the part with the tree root that jumped out and grabbed my foot and made me fall like a chopped tree. Unfortunately, the trail was really steep, so I fell beyond horizontal before my lower jaw stopped me in the rocks and dirt. I would have taken a picture of the blood cascading down the side of my arm, but my camera's lens hood was jammed onto the lens. The next time I think, "I should put my camera in its case rather than around my neck," I will not tell myself, "but it would be more convenient around my neck." Luckily, I was able to cut the lens hood off with a Dremel tool when I got home, and the lens and camera seem ok. I would tell you how far up the trail the tree root is, but the display on my Garmin Forerunner 301 was crushed. But don't worry, because there are plenty of roots and rocks for clumsy people to trip on all the way up the trail. You'd think the forest service could pave the trail and put in a handrail. Would a 3.5-mile escalator be too much to ask for?

Where Is Murdock Basin?

I don't know.

After I spent some time goofing off at my favorite beaver-viewing spot in the Uintas, I decided to drive somewhere I've never been: Murdock Basin.

The sign at the beginning of what started as a paved road said Murdock Basin is seven miles. The pavement turned into dirt, which turned into creek-bottom rocks. It was getting dark, so I tried to average about 10 miles per hour, but I think it took me more than an hour to go the seven miles. The guy in this Trail Blazer slowed me down for a bit, but he finally gave up and turned around.

Ok, I wasn't expecting a large meadow with lakes and grazing moose and elk, but I was sort of expecting a meadow or something of the sort with a chance to see some wildlife. In reality, the only way I knew I'd arrived at Murdock Basin was by this sign that let me know I couldn't go any farther without an ATV, motorcycle, or American flag. All I'd seen and was going to see were rocky road and trees.

Jennifer, don't watch this.

I think this is Murdock Basin, at least all you'll ever see from any of my pictures.

On the way back I decided to try a side road to Hoover Lake. I got just past this puddle and gave up. This road was even worse than the "main" road. On the way back, I met up with an original Hummer going in. He had a row of floodlights across the top of the car that made him look like a 747 making a landing. Besides being totally blinded, I was a little amused that he thought he had to burn his floodlights. First of all, it was barely dusk and the road was still quite visible. Second, even in a Hummer, he couldn't have been going more than 10 miles an hour, and his headlights cast plenty of light for that speed. I guess when you've spent all that money on a Hummer and floodlights, you gotta use them. I had to say that, because even though I don't know who he was, I have to make fun of him for not turning his lights down when I approached. Like the guy who won't dim his brights times 10.

I crossed this creek twice (once in, once out) on the main road.

There was a hill full of pretty white flowers.

And there was a nice sunset. This is looking from the Bald Mountain overlook.

Bald Mountain

I took a little stroll up Bald Mountain today. I read a map that said it's two miles to the top. My GPS said just under 1.5 miles. My GPS said I climbed from 10,764 to 12,006 feet. It felt like five miles straight up.

This cow moose and her calf were crossing the meadow just below the Bald Mountain overlook.

Even on August 1, the trail up Bald Mountain is blocked by a snowbank in one spot.

Plenty of spring flowers still line the trail.

Even thistle is pretty when it blooms. (The flower, not the town in Spanish Fork Canyon that won't ever blossom again after it was flooded in the 1983 landslide, the costliest landslide in U.S. history.)

Looking west southwest from the top of Bald Mountain you can see Mt. Timpanogos in the hazy background. I include this because Sara and her friends were hiking Timp today. I waved, but I couldn't tell for sure whether they waved back.

My car is parked in the middle of the cars in the half-circle on the left. This is looking southeast from the peak (and zoomed in).

Mirror Lake is the largest lake in this picture. Can you see Janet, Jennifer, and Stanton camping? Hayden Peak is in the center top background. I think the peak to the left of that is A-1, but I'm not sure. Up and to the right of Mirror Lake is Blythe Lake. When they're biting, brook trout is what you'll catch here. Randy and I caught our limit once, but I usually catch one or none. There's no trail to Blythe. I like it because I have never seen another person at the lake. It's only about 3/4 mile from the trailhead at Mirror Lake, but good luck finding the lake and your way back without a GPS.

The top of Bald Mountain, I suppose like all the other peaks around here, is not solid rock but broken boulders and rocks. This little cliff on the Mirror Lake side is of the more stable variety.

This old mountain goat is still shedding his fur from last winter. In another month he'll need to grow it back.

The goat on the right isn't quite as shaggy.

How many mountain goats do you see in this picture? I counted eight. This tribe was hanging out on the southwest side of Bald Mountain.