Mind Games: The Return to Ultimate

A few weeks ago, I underwent LASEK eye surgery to correct my severe astigmatism. I wrote a little bit about my experience shortly after the fact. Since then, my eyes have gradually been getting better and better. Objects are becoming less blurry, and I am able to see more clearly every day. However, there were some restrictions placed on me by the surgery, including being unable to engage in sweat-inducing sports (including my beloved Ultimate) for a month. That ban was lifted two weeks ago, and I have participated in two Ultimate weekends since then, with varying degrees of success.

My first Ultimate weekend post-surgery was a club tournament held in the coastal city of Ulsan. It was my first club tournament, and I was rather nervous for multiple reasons. I wasn’t sure how my eyes would cope with strenuous activity again. I wasn’t sure if I could keep up with my opponents, as I am normally not very quick and I hadn’t done any rigorous exercise for an entire month. I thought I might have lost some of my skills. Our wonderful, cheerful team also had many male substitutes. So, I decided to take it easy, only playing when needed and not putting myself onto the field too much.

This proved to be a wise approach. Even in the warm-ups before each game, I struggled slightly with depth perception and generally seeing the disc coming at me. I felt off-balance a lot of the time. I got winded more quickly than usual. I had lost a dash of speed. All of these played a role in not meeting my own personal expectations for the weekend. I dropped catches I should have caught. Opponents that wouldn’t have beaten me a month ago got past me for the score on multiple occasions. I even had to remove myself from the team environment during a break to listen to music and re-centre and re-focus myself.

The wonderful band of rapscallions that I played with in Ulsan

These mistakes and shortcomings aside, I enjoyed the first weekend back. Overall, I think I did alright – I didn’t let the team down too much, and we ended up with some great results. More importantly, there was always a positive attitude and atmosphere within the team, and we had great fun together. I took what I could from the Ulsan tournament, and looked ahead to my first weekend with my ROK-U team, the Wonju Knights.

Sadly for me, I hadn’t truly overcome the problems of the Ulsan weekend. I was still slower than I was, and for some reason my head just wasn’t in the right space. The Knights managed to win our first game of the weekend (something that would have been cause for celebration a season before), but I felt frustrated with my own performance. On the club team, I was a minnow and I knew it. On the Knights, I thought I would get more game time and play a more crucial role in the team. And yet, I would let others go on the field before me. I will generally sacrifice my own play time to make sure the more under-utilized men on our team get a run. It’s all about the spirit of the game and making sure everyone feels valued. Normally I would be okay with it – it’s what I do. But this time, I wasn’t mentally prepared for it. I both wanted to and didn’t want to sacrifice, but I did it anyway because that’s who I am. Once again, the team had a great time around me and enjoyed decent success, winning two of the three games that we played in and generally keeping spirits high in the process.

I guess the biggest impact that LASEK has had on my Ultimate game is not anything physical. I can see well enough to play at a decent level. My fitness (whatever small level I had to begin with) will return. The most significant hit I’ve taken appears to be mental. With a big weekend of important games this weekend, I need to take time to work through the mental obstacles preventing me from performing and enjoying the game I love. I need to stop thinking about dozens of different things and just get out there and have fun throwing a piece of plastic with my friends.

LASEK: 9 Days Later

Last Tuesday, I went through with a decision to get laser eye surgery. Whilst I would have preferred to undergo the more modern LASIK, my thin corneas meant that I could only safely have LASEK surgery done. Since then, I have spent a high percentage of my life in bed, in pain, with blurry vision. With each passing day, my vision and eye condition gets better, and my despondency with the surgery decreases a little. Here’s a brief picture into what the first week after LASEK looks like.

The day of the surgery

For the weeks leading up to the surgery, I was fairly content with my decision. I had read up on the possible consequences of LASEK, and although the recovery time was fairly long compared to the other options, I felt like I would be able to endure a couple of days of discomfort in order to have decades of perfect vision. I walked into BGN Eye Centre in Seoul a confident, slightly nervous, and excited customer. A number of my friends had already had surgery there before, and I myself had been there for my initial assessment. The staff are wonderful, and they have a dedicated member of staff to assist English speakers in the predominantly Korean office.

After some issues paying for the surgery itself (my credit card’s limit was not high enough to accommodate the whole cost of LASEK), I was carefully taken to the surgery area. My eyes were checked again to confirm the adjustments that I would need, I was given anaesthetic for my eyes, and led to the machine.

It was an intimidating machine to say the least. A seemingly random collection of metal, gears, and lights with just enough space under it for a person to stick their head. I had no idea where I was meant to look, so I just looked straight ahead as my eyes were washed and prepared for the lasers. The actual surgery took a grand total of no more than 10 minutes. I stood up with blurry vision but no pain (the anaesthetics were still working their magic) and met my friends that I had asked to help me around Seoul after the surgery. We then went together to the pharmacy in the buiding, got my swarm of eye drops, and were soon on our merry way.

Day After the Surgery -Day 5 Post-Surgery

Sunlight sucked. Sunlight sucked a lot. Room lights sucked. Loud noises sucked.

I spent this period of time almost entirely on my back in my bed, with my eyes closed and sunglasses on. At night, I had to sleep with special goggles that prevented me from rubbing my eyes. In addition, LASEK requires you to wear thin contact lenses for five days in order to protect your lasered eyes from the world. These both resulted in even more eye discomfort than normal.

That is not an easy task – my eyes were in a great deal of discomfort already. This fell on a spectrum of ‘oh, it feels like I have a speck of dust in my eye that I just can’t rub out’ to, and I quote, ‘THIS SHIT ISN’T WORTH THE PAIN’. I did not have a good Chuseok holiday. Kristen was a superb nurse during this time – without her constant love, attention, preparing meals, and generally being there for me, I would probably have had a breakdown of some kind.

I couldn’t see anything due to blurriness, my eyes were in pain, and my body began to ache from lying in bed all day. The only relief came from applying cooled metal d20’s (which would normally be used to chill drinks) to my forehead and cover my face with a dark scarf. In those moments of comfort, I enjoyed being able to just lie in the darkness, listening to an audiobook with Kris by my side. Those moments were peaceful. They were also very few and far between.

Day 6 Post-Surgery – Removal of Protective Contacts

As each day went by, my vision got slightly better and the discomfort decreased. After six days, my eyes were ready to have the protective contacts removed. I returned to BGN, where they checked my eyes to see their progress (apparently everything was going well!) before taking out the confounded pieces of plastic coating my eyes in irritation. I was relieved to have them out, and the rest of the day passed with minimal disomfort.

Day 7 post-surgery – now

These have definitely been the easiest days since the surgery. The day after the removal of the contacts, there were moments of incredible pain again, but they were short-lived. Now, I just have to deal with the annoyance of street lamps, indoor lighting, and projectors making my eyes more irritated than the average user of an Internet forum.

But I think I can deal with that in order to spend the majority of the rest of my life without glasses and with good vision. I can wear sunglasses. I can look at my fiancee after I’ve taken my glasses off to go to sleep and actually see how beautiful she is. I can play Ultimate without worrying that my glasses are going to fall off and break, or get covered in sweat and obstruct my vision. And hey, I might even look prettier without glasses. I don’t know. But now that I’ve done the surgery, I have a lifetime to explore the benefits that a pretty awful few days allowed me to have.