Now it’s been three weeks since my Lasik, and here’s the news: last Thursday when I flew to the Bay Area was the worst. I’d been warned that the airplane air could really dry out post-Lasik eyes, and oh my god, that is no joke. By the time the plane was landing, I was pretty much just putting a steady stream of eye drops in, and by the time I was in the car driving from Oakland to San Jose, my right eye was stinging and burning and totally inflamed and awful feeling.

I fell asleep that night in a bit of a panic (MY EYE!!!) and woke up a few hours later with it still hurting (MY FUCKING EYE!!!!) all atwitter about oh god, if it stays like this I can’t stay at Blogher and I’m going to have to go to a hospital or something and ow ow ow my eye!

Luckily, by the time I woke up in the morning it was back to relatively ok, but I called my doctor anyway. They said just keep on it with the drops. It’s ok! Keep on it with the eye drops! So I did, and it was relatively ok, but my right eye continued to sort of bother me. It sort of faded in and out of being bothersome.

This morning after I got out of the shower, my right eye started bugging me again. That’s it, I said. I’m calling my damn doctor. It’s probably nothing, but I have to know if something’s wrong! My eye is still bothering me!

So I went in to the Lasik clinic and the doctor looked at my eyes. “Aha,” he said. “I see the problem.”

Oh god. The problem! What is it! What is it!? Is my flap dislodged? Why does my eye feel so irritated, doctor? WHY?

“You’ve got three eyelashes stuck under your eyelid,” he said, before using some teeny specialized tweezers to fish them out.

Ahhhh. See, after Lasik you’re not allowed to touch your eyes for a long time. They say this over and over again. Don’t touch your eyes! Don’t touch them!! Normally, you get an eyelash under your eyelid, you rub it out. But when you can’t touch your eyes, it sits there and makes you think you’re going crazy.

Anyway, now the lashes are out from under my eyelids and I feel awesome. Sweet, sweet relief.