I sat in the small, dimly lit waiting room. I had to stop myself from thinking too much about what I was doing there, because if I did, I might just scurry out and never do it. So I sat, and tried to do the things I was taught to do to relax. Took deep breaths. Focused on something tranquil, like waves crashing on the beach or a walk in a forest. These thoughts were supposed to relax me.

A door unobtrusively opened, and the technician entered.

"Just a valium, to help you relax. It won't be long now. And these drops will numb your eyes. Look up at the ceiling."

She put the numbing drops in my eyes, and I was once again left alone to contemplate what I was doing there.

"Why was I doing this? Was I out of my mind?"

I sighed and closed my eyes again. Time to relax. The Valium was starting to do its thing. I wasn't so unsure anymore.

A few minutes later, the door opened again. This time it was the doctor who had come personally, to lead me to the operating room.

"Are you ready, Debbie? We're ready for you. Follow me."

I trance- walked into another room that looked bright and non-threatening. I was escorted to the table, and asked to lie down, keeping my head steady. Things really started to happen quickly. The nurse handed me a small teddy bear.

"Sometimes people feel like squeezing the bear for comfort."

My thoughts were not on finding comfort from a stuffed bear. No, my comfort would come from within me, and from on taking calming breaths.

Dr. Culvert said that the first thing they were going to do was to place tape over my eyelids, to keep them from closing. I felt like a doll with painted open eyes, never to be closed. My thoughts raced. This might not be so bad if I could just close my eyes........I might be able to get through it easier. But no, now I was looking straight up, eyes wide open. Open so wide I felt like there was no way to pretend that this wasn't happening. There was no way to relax and drift off to another place. This was it. I was here, and the decision was firm.

The doctor and his nurse felt compelled to tell me every thing they were doing, step by step. I didn't want to tell them to stop, and the more they told me, the worse my thoughts became.

"OK, now we're just going to place this suction cup over your eyeball, to keep it from moving around in the socket."

"Oh no! " I wailed silently.

The suction cup was placed on my eye. The doctor started to tighten it. I felt like I was curling my eyelashes like I did in the 80's, but curling too tight! It hurt! My whole eyeball was exposed now. How contrasting, it was so exposed and so extremely invaded.

"Debbie, next we are going to cut off a slice of your cornea, and flap it back. You will see a blur for a moment, and then you will not see anything because your lens will be off for a moment. Right after that we will start the laser. Your will see a red light, but when the lens is flapped back it will be faint, not as bright. You will need to keep looking at it. Don't move your eye."

We were here, at the moment of no return. As soon at the sound of the electric cutter began, I realized that this was one of those rare moments in time, where you really needed to believe in what you are doing. Your breathing in and out would be what would take you through the next few moments of time.

"I trust this man," I said to myself.

"He has done this for ten years. He hasn't botched up once," I mused.

This whir of the cutter, and the sensation of liquid on my eye was all I knew at that moment. Suddenly, I was looking at the red light, the laser light. The light that I had waited years for. The light that I was told was the only safe way to go. The moment of time for change was here. I was ready.

"OK, Debbie, forty five seconds and we'll be done with this eye. Keep looking at the red light."

The red light, my savior for the moment. But it faded, and it became a distant speck of gray far off. I couldn't see it clearly. My eye wanted to search for it, to roam around until it found it again. But I couldn't. I had to keep still.

"Ten more seconds and we're done. Five more...finished!"

The relief of the suction cup coming off was the best thing I had ever felt. But my momentary feeling of relief was being replaced quickly by the realization that the other eye was yet to be done. Could I stand it for another couple of minutes? I found it hard to believe that such magic could be performed on my eyes in only a couple of minutes, forty five seconds, really, of the laser performing its miracle.

And it did, indeed, seem like a miracle to me. Three days later, my eyesight was great. A week later I left to drive the one thousand miles back home to Oregon, this time free of any eye encumbrances. I felt liberated. I felt reborn, really. For the first time in thirty one years, I had perfect vision. Perfect.