Eyeballs Taste Like Steak
In light of recently seeing the eyeballs post by @foldingfittedsheets, I thought I'd contribute my own.
A few years ago, I got Lasik to correct my vision. This was an adventure worthy of a story. My best friend/roommate came up to me one day and was like hey you wanna go get Lasik and being the nonplussed acquiescent person that I am, I just went sure why not.
(it is worth mentioning that I did not entirely go and zap my eyeballs out of the blue. We'd floated this idea for some time, and since I had recently gotten contact lenses and struggled mightily with them. Touching ones own eyeballs is hard.)
Said friend also informed me that they'd gotten a buy one get one free deal, which I didn't even know was even possible for eyeballs. Do people just correct one eyeball? Apparently that's a thing. If you do two eyeballs you can just get surgery for another person for free?
My vision pre-surgery was pretty bad. I could not read the words you are reading right now without the display being a hands-breadth from my screen. Quite conveniently, it was still able to be corrected with the less invasive, faster recovering version of the surgery.
After the consultation, we decide to go forward with it and rolled into the surgery location where the doc gave me a little Valium to relax my eyeballs. The surgery itself was extremely fast, far exceeding my expectations.
The doctor first cut into my eyeball with a scalpel to flip up the top layer, then positioned me under the machine which fired the laser for a bit, and then flipped my eyeball flap back.
Et Voila, I could suddenly see.
It's moments like these where the marvel of human medical science and technology feel absolutely magical, completely overriding my discomfort of having my eyeball handled like a chopped cheese.
The process of having my eyeball cut into was made far less disconcerting by how fast and proficient the doctor was. I only saw the blade in focus for a split second before everything went blurry. I could barely make out the shape of the laser machine, a vague metallic oculus over my head.
The laser itself only fired for a few seconds, appearing to me as blurry flashes in my vision. Each little zap was also accompanied by a sound akin to a hammer rapping on metal, which I think was probably the aperture opening and closing.
I'm aware of the fact that the surgery is quite literally burning parts of my eye to fix the focus of my vision, but I was still not ready for the smell of my own flesh burning, which smelled inexplicably of steak.
I could see everything with 20/15 vision as soon as the little flap of eyeball was flipped back into place. The doc helped bundle us into an Uber back home with instructions not to open our eyes too much for the next 24 hours and a handful of antibiotic steroid drops to apply.
Roommate and I are both a little dizzy but pleased with the result, and we order sushi from our usual place. Without being able to see, eating sushi becomes a messy game of What Am I Holding? Did I Accidentally Grab The Hunk Of Wasabi. Roommate and I are giggling and fumbling over this platter of sushi when roommate's girlfriend comes home.
Imagine you are a girl. You come home. The lights are dim, and set to ominous hellfire red. Lex Fridman's podcast is playing in the background for some reason. Your partner and his best friend are crouched around a platter of sushi in the darkness, with sunglasses on, eating from it with their hands like blind mice gremlins.
There is a follow up to this story, which I will post when my brain finishes simmering it. I leave you with the forbidden knowledge that burning eyeballs smell like steak, and probably taste like steak too.
