Who had laser surgery and what was your experience with it?
I did. It was great.
I laid down, they put some anesthetic drops in my eyes, and then moved the machinery over my head. They covered one eye, and told me to stare at the red light with the other. They lowered a microkeratome, which is sort of like a guillotine for eyes, and cut a flap in my cornea. The drops worked fine, and there was no real discomfort there. Then, the cool part: they lifted the flap. It was as if you suddenly realized that you were watching the world on a movie screen, because a giant had come up behind the screen, grabbed a corner of it, and yanked it away. Behind it was a hazy dark-grey hole, with the neat red light in the middle now shining as if through a cloud.
Then, the laser began working, with a pop-pop-pop-pop-pop sound. One of the neat things they don't tell you beforehand: I noticed a burning smell from, presumably, my eyeball. When I mentioned it afterwards, they admitted that every once in awhile a patient would bring that up. (I'd declined the Valium; I think they give people that so they don't notice or flip out over such things.) Pretty soon the laser stopped, the world was flipped back into place, and I had a moment of seeing with perfect clarity, as if I had my glasses on. Then they covered the eye, and did the other one.
After the anesthetic wore off, I spent about a day and a half with my eyes mostly closed, with the feeling that I'd been chopping far too many onions. And then it was over, and I had 20/20 vision.