New Eyes

I still remember exactly when I started noticing that there was something wrong with my eyesight. I was in the fourth grade, in the Dolomites with my family for a skiing vacation. We were returning to our hotel after dinner, walking in the dark, with snow all around, running and laughing with my brother and throwing snowballs at my parents.

As we approached the hotel, the sign for the "Hotel Rubino" was fuzzy at the edges – like when you squint your eyes to make a lamppost’s light become a fuzzy ball. I told my dad, and as soon as we got back home, I went to the ophthalmologist. From her face, I knew: I would have to wear glasses.

Now, though, in my senior year at college, technology may save me. I have scheduled an appointment for a correctional laser surgery, now a routine operation that doesn’t take more than two hours.

The eye is sedated with drops, and the cornea is modified with the laser beam, until it reaches the correct curve and shape. If all goes smoothly, you can leave for home a half hour later.

Even though I am a bit worried about having a flap of my eye opened, and a laser beam burning away tissue, I am also very excited about it. I have gotten used to the glasses and lenses humdrum, but it will also be very liberating being able to go on vacation without having to worry about spare lenses, getting something in my eye, or forgetting my glasses somewhere.

More than a decade later, I will get to see the world with new eyes.