To respond to the last few questions:
1: Cost was $2500 U.S. dollars for both eyes. This covers the custom lasik and also a lifetime enhancement guarantee--which I hope to never need. They offer regular lasik as well at a lower price, but why settle for anything less than the best with your eyes? And as for insurance helping cover the costs--nope--not a red cent. The military is starting to offer lasik to all new recruits however--so if you want to sign up for some verbal abuse and long nights in Iraq you could get it covered.
2: Do you see them cutting the flap? To answer I'll describe the procedure.
After some extensive pre-op testing the day before they bring you into the OR, clean and anesthetize you eyes with a series of eyedrops and saline flushes. Next they tape one eye shut and put a piece of plastic in one eye to hold open your eyelids so that you can't blink. (Remember your eye is numb so the blink reflex is diminished and this doesn't bug you at all.) They next put pressure on the eye which temporarily causes you to lose vision in that eye (scariest part of the procedure) and you hear the keratome or electric knife buzzing which sounds like a dentist's drill. They remove the pressure from your eye and your vision returns and you then see the doc lift the corneal flap created by the keratome. You then focus on a light up above you and you hear the laser buzzing as it reshapes and corrects the imperfections in your cornea. The doc then flushes your eye with some saline and replaces the corneal flap making sure it is nice and smooth and lets the flap sit for about 1 minute by which time it readheres to the eye.
That eye is closed, the other open and the process is repeated. The whole thing takes about 15 minutes and then with eye-shields in place you're out the door. For the next 6 hours you keep your eyes closed, opening them to blink a few times every 15 minutes or so and after that you can look around as much as you like--and boy do things look great!
You have to be careful to avoid any activities where your eye could get poked (potentially dislodging the corneal flap) for the next 6 weeks, but I drove home from Montreal the day after with no problems.
I think I'll stick with my glasses!!!
