The good news is that my vision has stabilized.

The bad news is that my vision has stabilized, in the wrong place.

No more fluctuating, no more discomfort. I'm only using the eye drops when I wake up in the morning, and by now I think this is more of a reflex than anything else.

But I can't see as well as I'd hoped, as well as I'd been led to expect.

I had my 8-week checkup at Joffe. Right off the bat, I told the nurse dude that I was spending most of the time wishing I still had glasses. He had me look through a machine at a balloon - not sure what that test is all about - and then old me to wait for the real eye-doctor.

I told her the same thing. I can't read scores scrolling on the bottom of a TV. I can't read menus behind the counters at fast-food places. I see ghost-images of balls when I play pool. I remember fondly the pre-LASIK days when I saw much better, albeit with glasses.

She had me do the standard test, and I read the 20/20 line on the eye chart for her. Then I reminded her that there's a difference between making out the letters, and seeing them clearly. I was not seeing them clearly. Not at all.

So then she had me do that series of tests where I look at two different lines, one after the other, and declare which one I can see better. This is the same test that everyone who's ever worn glasses has taken. It's how they figure out what prescription you need.

Every other time in my life, when comparing these pairs of lines, I've always had to make them switch back and forth for some of the pairs. Some of the pairs were just too similar at first glance, so I had to see them again before declaring a winner.

But not this time.

For whatever reason, there was never any doubt at all. Two was better than one. Four was better than three. Six was better than five, eight was better than seven, and ten was better than nine. And, each and every time, there was absolutely no doubt. The difference was glaringly obvious. Like, twelve wasn't just better than eleven, it was a million times better. Those even-numbered lines were clear and sharp. Those odd-numbered lines were blurry and/or ghosty.

The results of this test seem to have convinced the doctor that I wasn't just pulling her leg for some reason. She'd already determined that there was no swelling or scarring or dryness in my eye. The only remaining explanation for my less-than-perfect vision was that they'd fucked something up. Or, as she put it, I would most likely need a second procedure to make everything right.

She also said that we could start discussing that after I'd gone three months. So, sometime in June or July, it's extremely likely that I'll be going under the knife/laser again.

I hope so. I hope they don't try/succeed in talking me out of it. There will be no cost to me, and I'm sure they don't relish the idea of doing free procedures on people. But, as things are now, I'm not exactly a glowing endorsement for either LASIK in general or for Joffe in particular. That's gotta count for something.

I'm looking forward to it. I want to see better. To be fair, I already can see better. It's like the partial success I've had has given me a taste of how things could be. Will be, I'm convinced, once I heal from the second correction.

It's calming, actually. I'm no longer stressing about blurriness or ghost images. I'm no longer wondering just how long it's supposed to take for my vision to get better. Now I know that it's not going to get better on it's own, so I can stop worrying about it.

I'll have to go through all that crap again. The prescription eye-drops. The trying to sleep in the sunglasses. The burning and itchiness for a few weeks. But, after I go through all that one more time, I expect to finally have what I should have gotten the first time.

Clear vision. That will be nice.