We’re going to talk about eyeballs again, but there’s going to be nothing unpleasant this time.

This time it’s a non-gross eye-related episode of Your Daily Lex.

Your Daily Lex.

It was 2002, I guess, when I decided I wanted to get LASIK, and I got the procedure done in 2003.

Before I could get LASIK, my eye doctor, Dr.

Betsy Blackman in Los Angeles, California, she insisted that I start doing exercises.

She said that I had an eye that would, I would let my eye kind of go out to the side sometimes.

Not that it was a lazy eye, but that it was behaving lazily.

So sometimes instead of focusing on things with two eyes, I would just let one eye go out to the side a little bit.

So I had to practice.

She said, for example, when people look each other in the eyes, they look in both eyes.

Nobody I’ve ever asked a question about that who agrees with that statement.

So I’m sorry, Dr.

Blackman, because most of the time when you look somebody in the eye, you’re looking in one eye or you switch focus to the other eye, but you can’t really look in both eyes of another person at the same time.

So despite what Dr.

Blackman said, I don’t have a problem with that.

But she rightly acknowledged that I was not always using both eyes to focus properly.

And she said I could not get the LASIK until I corrected that problem.

And to correct that problem, she gave me a glorified tongue depressor that had images printed on it on either side, on all four sides, maybe.

And I named some of those pictures.

And I remember vividly there was Lemonhead and Turtle Dog.

Lemonhead was a yellowish object of some kind.

I think it was not a lemon.

And Turtle Dog, I don’t remember what the animal actually was, but he seemed to have elements of both being a turtle and a dog.

And the job was I had to hold the, I’m miming this with a dry erase marker that’s in my hand at the moment, but I would have to hold the tongue depressor up to my eyes, I guess in the center, and then pull it out and stay focused on it and not let an eye go out.

And I used to not be able to do it, and then eventually could do it.

But I had to practice a lot, just like working out the muscle.

And then eventually Dr.

Blackman said, okay, your eyes are strong enough and they stay focused enough so you can get LASIK.

But Dr.

Blackman didn’t do the, I mean, Dr.

Blackman did the LASIK.

But she’s like, look, if I do it, I have to charge you a markup because I use somebody else’s surgical facilities.

But you can just go to that guy and he’ll do it and he won’t charge you the markup, so you’ll save some money.

And I was like, okay.

So I went to his office.

His office was in Hollywood and had a view of the Hollywood sign.

My sister, Abby, took me to the procedure.

I was asked to take Valium before the procedure, and it was my first time ever taking Valium.

I enjoyed it.

So he’s like, okay, you’re going to sit up and look out the window at the Hollywood sign without your glasses on.

You can see how blurry it is.

And then he lies you down, they do the procedure.

When I did it, it was still the gross way, but I promised this wouldn’t be a gross episode, so it was not all laser LASIK.

We’ll just leave it there.

And then when they’re done, they’re like, okay, set up and look out the window.

And now I could see the Hollywood sign.

It was crazy.

And that was exciting.

Whatever.

The whole procedure took a very little amount of time.

And the thing I hadn’t been prepared for was the smell of burnt flesh that would permeate the room.

But indeed, they were burning my flesh, I guess, to a degree, or my internal, I don’t know, they’re burning my retina or something.

I don’t know.

I’m not a doctor.

But so anyway, they fixed my vision.

And they sent me home with crazy goggles that I was supposed to wear when I slept so that I wouldn’t scratch my eyes in my sleep.

I could be, you know, an adult grown up human and not scratch my eyes while awake.

But this was to protect myself from scratching my eyes while I was sleeping.

And I would wake up with my fingers clawing under the mask to scratch my eyes.

I don’t think I did any permanent damage.

When I did LASIK, like I said, it was 03.

It lasted about a decade.

I’ve talked about that before.

Eventually, I started noticing that I needed glasses at night.

And then I felt like I always needed glasses to drive and then I just needed glasses all the time.

And then I switched back to contacts.

I would get LASIK again in a heartbeat if a doctor said that it was okay.

The reason that I don’t yet or the reason that the doctors say I shouldn’t yet is because they say as soon as we gave you LASIK, you would need reading glasses.

So we’re going to hold off until you need reading glasses.

Okay, I guess.

So far, I don’t need reading glasses.

My reading vision is perfect.

It’s amazing.

I can read what you’re looking at right now.

That’s how good my but I do hope one day to get it because the funny thing to me is one of my motivations in getting LASIK was man, I don’t want to have to wear glasses or contacts in bed when I want to watch TV and then got LASIK and then took the TV out of the bedroom and never had TV in the bedroom before yet.

But I still I mean, I don’t mind putting in contacts other than you remember the incident.

I don’t mind contacts in general.

But you don’t have perfect vision and not need contacts seems significantly superior to having perfect vision requiring contacts.

So anyway, I’d like to get it again one day.

We’ll see.

See what I did there.

See, see, DC.

Okay.

That was the seven seas.

Anyway, have a great weekend.

And we’ll talk again.

Come Monday, Lex.