Sometimes the most obvious things are the most uncomfortable to address- that was certainly the case for me and my eyes. Right on the middle of my face, yet I broke into hives discussing them.
Last month, right before hospitals started to cancel non-essential procedures as Covid spread, I had strabismus surgery to correct the longtime vision and aesthetic issues it caused. There’s a highlight on my Instagram, and we documented the entire process for YouTube… see for yourself!
I wanted to answer the questions I’ve gotten all in one place, so here goes!
Who was your surgeon? Dr Luke Dietz. He’s based out of the Wright Institute in Beverly Hills and I have nothing but gratitude for him, his staff, and his work.
Did your health insurance cover the surgery? How much was it? My insurance did cover my surgery beyond my deductible. David spent hours on the phone during open enrollment to make sure that our insurance plan would be accepted by Dr Luke and the hospital, and that they would cover the procedure. As long as it affects your vision, it is considered necessary rather than cosmetic and should be eligible for coverage. The surgery itself was 6k, operating fees, anesthesia, and fine print brought the total to just shy of 10k.
What did your eyes look like before? It was incredibly hard to find pictures of my crossed eyes- I almost exclusively wore sunglasses or prism glasses to detract, cropped it out of pictures. Suffice to say that my left eye looked straight at my nose, and my right leaned in to meet it.
What do you mean when you say you had double vision? I saw 2 of everything I looked at, always. It gave me nausea and headaches and just sucked. David did a camera tricksy in the video about 3:20 that replicated what I always saw so you can see for your self what it was like.
Do you have full perfect vision now? No. I’m still nearsighted, and will always need glasses or contacts for that. It is mostly unrelated to my strabismus and the surgery wasn’t ever going to fix that. As far as my vision correction as a result of surgery, it seems to be an ideal result. I’m still working through the last of the inflammation, but my vision is single, clear, and binocular, and Dr Luke was very pleased with my post-op testing.
Why didn’t you talk about this before? Long term? Shame, insecurity, embarrassment, pride… take your pick. Short term, it happened fast. After endless research, I was directed to Dr Luke, and between my travel schedule and his, I waited several months for my appointment, and saw him the first week of February. I was preparing for a late April surgery, but a cancellation opened up an earlier appointment for me and I jumped at the chance to have my surgery before the end of the month. It was a LOT to organize quickly, and I was incredibly, paralyzingly anxious about the procedure, so I told a handful of friends in passing, but didn’t advertise it. Transparently, the lack of lead up probably made my recovery more stressful than it would have been otherwise- we weren’t able to have my mom fly in and help with Asher, who struggled to understand that I was too hurt to roughhouse and clung furiously to me. David had his hands full caring for us both, poor guy- it was one of those times I was so envious of people who have big families and local support.
How many appointments did you have before surgery? I had two appts with Dr Luke pre-surgery where he dialated my eyes, and did a lot of measurements with prisms. I saw my primary care physician for bloodwork and clearance presurgery since I’d be under general anesthesia. I also had to see my regular eye doctor to get my script for glasses modified to have no prism in them for post surgery.
I’ll add any more questions or updates here, but the video covers most everything!
xxRC
