The Unexpected Adventures of a Lasik Patient

---

It is not like we planned to spend a week outside of D.C. it just kind of happened. I wasn't even suppose to tag along at all, but after signing up for an event in the City on Saturday we figured we would head on down to D.C., do a little exploring in the afternoon and return Monday after the SCHEDULED eye doctors appointment. Sounds so nice and simple, so how did I end up spending a week in D.C.!



Since Derik is in the military he can't just go to just any doctor to get an eye consultation, oh no. No he has to go all the way down to Walter Reed Medical Facility right outside of D.C. to be told whether or not his eyes are compatible with LASIK or PRK. Although originally I wasn't going to join him on this leg of the trip (assuming I would instead join him when he was actually having his eyes sliced and diced later on) I decided to tag along because really who wants to drive all the way down to D.C. solo and honestly maybe in the future after winning the lottery and growing a set of balls maybe I too would have LASIK eye surgery. (After this trip nobody is coming close to my eyeballs with no laser!!)

DAY ONE:

After leaving NYC having spent the night there thanks to the USO (we were apart of some event, we still haven't figured out what kind of event but it was a really nice event/fundraiser/appreciating/awareness dinner thing) we headed off to D.C. It had be years since either of us had been in the Nation's capital and assuming we would have very limited time on this particular day we bee lined it right into the city.



Our first stop was Ford Theater. We had hear rave reviews of this place and decided to make it a mandatory stop this time around. Unfortunately upon arrival that actual theater was being used but we hoped across the street to the house where Lincoln was taken too after being shot and eventually passed away in. The downstairs is preserved just as it would have looked when Lincoln himself stayed there. And as you progress through the actual house you move into the museum next door. Three floors filled with interesting facts that you may not have heard about put together in an informative and interesting way. I was a fan of the layout, never becoming to overwhelming as some museums may do. What was really amazing to me was a stack of books three stories tall that showed how many books had been written about Lincoln.

http://www.fords.org/home/plan-your-visit/daytime-visits-fords-theatre



Sticking with the historic theme (as one must while in D.C.) we walked over to the National Archive. We hoped inside just in time to avoid the rain and meandered through the building. Within the National Archive is the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and the Magna Carta. Although we walked right on in, the Rotunda where the Constitution, Declaration and Bill of Rights where stored was pretty packed. We took a peak at each and moved on to puruse the rest of the musuem. One of the coolest things I saw was actually how they made the boxes that preserve each of these documents. It is really elaborate and impressive (as well as $$$$$)

https://www.archives.gov/dc-metro/washington/



Not yet willing to go to the hotel we decided to check out the Washington Monument and the White House. It was apparent that they were having some kind of event at the White House and we had hoped that Obama would invite us in but for some reason that never happened :/ however we did see his convoy drive him in. I barely blinked at the passing police cars until someone else pointed them out. Seemed a bit excessive to have so many cop cars escort you home, but maybe he was running late for his own shindig?!




After getting as many photos of the Washington Monument and White House that our phones could handle we headed on over to Walter Reed.



DAY TWO:

I had heard the automated message informing Derik to report to Walter Reed on Monday. Even though we both had heard the message we found it very odd, he had just submitted the form for approval and less than two days later he was getting an appointment. Being a priority one, we thought that had boosted him enough to get his appointment sooner but we were still skeptical. SO Derik called, he called on Thursday (the day after the automated message), he called on Friday and he even called this very morning (Monday). It is kind of weird when a doctors office doesn't return your calls, even weirder when they don't answer them. Still thinking that the automated message was correct but not being fully confident due to the lack of real humans on the other end of the phone we decided to stroll right into the office and confirm his appointment at 1:30.



It is never a good thing when the receptionist (strangely enough there was ALWAYS a receptionist at the front desk.... right next to the phone.... every time we walked in there) hears your name and has no idea who you are. It is even worse news when she pulls up your information and say "Oh no you don't have an appointment here you have an appointment at Earle". You know Earle, the base that is IN NEW JERSEY. Both of us with our jaws dropping to the floor thought we had just taken a rather pointless, semi expensive trip to D.C. and then instead of enjoying D.C. chose to hang out in a hospital. Oi vey! However when the manager strolled over he didn't seem to think it that much of a problem. Having heard that we came all the way from Jersey he said he could squeeze Derik in (although still nobody know how or why Derik got an automated message from Walter Reed since they didn't even have him in the system spooooooky). Not only could they squeeze him in to have his consult but if he wanted too and his command was cool with it he could have surgery tomorrow!

After watching a super informative and all around disgusting video about how they go about slicing and dicing your eyes open and creating flaps and scrubbing corneas and stuff (I say stuff because I've blocked most of the video from my memory) it was decided that sure if we're down here we might as well get his surgery done. Doesn't that sound so simple. Well it isn't, not when everyone and your mom has to approve you staying for surgery that is considered an elective unless your a flight person and yadda yadda yadda. I don't really know how it happened, but in less than two hours everyone who had to say okay (including my own boss "Hey man so I'm just not coming to work for a week SURPRISE") said okay.

Now to go to the mall.... we had only packed for one day remember.



DAY THREE:



Well today was all about slicing, dicing, cutting and styling. We got to the medical facility around 7 am (being the first to arrive) and by 11:30 we were walking out. After doing a bit of research yesterday Derik went with LASIK eye surgery over PRK. It had more to do with his job in the Navy than anything else because they were initially pushing for PRK. After gather up all 12 of the folks getting surgery, they walked them through a consent form and explained the order of which folks would get the eye surgery. Derik was third in line. I was glad that he was getting it done in the morning, gave us less time to worry about the whole process. It even minimized the time of anxiety after they gave him a medical bracelet with a name so misspelt you had to wonder if someone wasn't totally coherent this morning.

He told me he was going back at 11am. By 11:30am he was walking out all squinty eyed but in very little pain (which is impressive laser + eyeball = no pain????). I walked him to the car, got him to the hotel room and here he was made to keep his eyes closed for four hours. For anyone who knows Derik, they know that keeping him still for four hours is nearly impossible. He needs to look at his phone at least once every 15 minutes. And if he can't be doing that he needs to be moving around, driving somewhere, coming up with some crazy plan. So for four hours he tossed and turned, he slept a bit (thankfully) and then for the last hour every 10 minutes "how long has it been", "am I almost done", "how much longer". Oi vey, if you haven't heard an alarm go off it probably hasn't been four hours! But eventually the alarm did go off, and he opened his eyes. After using a few drops to refresh them he could see, it really was that simple. All of a sudden the T.V. that was always a huge colorful blur to him was clear as day. The STOP sign at the end of the road could be read without problems. In five hours he went for 20/70 to reading the tiny scroll at the bottom of ESPN. It was seriously amazing!

Naturally antsy after four hours of nothingness, he instantly dressed and demanded (asked nicely) his chauffeur (me) to drive him to the town over. Just guess what Derik would want to do after four hours of nothingness, guess. Food? Museum? Brewery? No, all of those would be incorrect. Instead the goal was to cut off all my hair. I mean I always joke about BICing my hair (it was be so easy to take care of) but that was out of the question. Instead I decided to chop about 6ish inches off. Borderline traumatizing (totally exaggerating) we went to a salon where I got the shortest hair I have ever had, since the time the hair surpassed its now current length.



DAY FOUR:

Before Derik got his eyes examined we decided to hit up the Original Pancake House. If you are a breakfast eater, and love trying new place come here. Avocado toast, poached eggs, hashbrowns and of course pancakes. It is insane the amount of food you get for such a reasonable price. Just gotta throw that out there, that is how good that place is!

http://ophrestaurants.com/

Alrighty so Derik had his eyes checked and after years and years and years of wearing glasses he is now 20/20. How awesome, i just can't get over how awesome/amazing/insane/crazy/fabulous every other adjective that describes something like this! He can see!!!

He even got the okay to drive, and as soon as he got that we were off! A rainy cold day we headed out towards the airport to check out the National Air and Space Museum. Now Derik is a super nerd when it come to planes, trains and automobiles but most of all to space stuff. The museum is really impressive. You walk in and there are tons and tons of planes. Big planes, little planes, fast planes, planes you can't believe actually flew. It is really quite impressive and what is even better, going with Derik someone who knows all the fancy little facts which allows you to totally by pass reading all the signage. The final room contains the Space Shuttle Discovery which is really quite spectacular. The whole museum is definitely worth a visit (I like it better than the one in D.C.)

https://airandspace.si.edu/visit/udvar-hazy-center/




After a quick meal at Micky D's (don't judge us!) we headed back into D.C. to explore the Holocaust Museum. Again we were informed that this was a must see museum and it really was fascinating. There are several floors filled with information from how the Holocaust kind of came about and how although we promised never to allow something like that to be repeated it has been in places like Cambodia. Video's play, telling stories of people who have survived and then there is the top floor.

https://www.ushmm.org/information/plan-a-visit

We actually didn't get to check out the top floor. As we began to move through the building a curator came up to us and asked us to go down to the bottom floor. Curious as to why considering we still have 15 minutes before closing we were informed that there was a tornado warning going off in the next half hour. He told us we were more than welcome to stay in the building if we had no where safer to go but that we would have to be on the bottom floor. With the BMW sitting outside we decided it might be best to move it inside somewhere. Plus we had tickets to the Capitals game tonight!

So we parked the car and grabbed some food at Hill Country BBQ. If you like BBQ food, well you will get a lot of it here! You actually don't order at your table. Instead you take a little card with you to the back group where you select what kind of meat you want. You then ask for your sides and people jot down what your ordering and at the end of the meal you hand that in in return for a check. Craziness, but all of it was very good especially the green bean casserole and $5.00 margaritas!

No tornado warning went off while we were eating, but it had begun to downpour at some point during our meal. With our bellies full we bolted the couple of blocks to the Verizon Center where we made our way through the line quickly and got up to our seats. The Capitals were playing the Canadians and although it was a fun game, it didn't turn out so swell for the home team. After a lame defeat we again booked it out of there to avoid the traffic and high tailed it home/Walter Reed :P




DAY FIVE:

A day with no doctors appointments 😊. We ate some leftover pancake house breakfast and hit the road toward Arlington Cemetery. It shouldn't have taken us that long however we drove around in circles for about an hour with the cemetery in site but no idea how to enter. On our last attempt, swearing we would give up if this was unsuccessful, we managed to find the entrance. I'm not quite sure why it was so hard but for some reason it was! Anywho, we made it! It was freezing out so we hopped on the trolley that takes you around and points out all the most famous head stones and such. With a few minutes to spare we headed straight towards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers. There, no matter what, someone is stationed and all they do is walk back and forth as precisely as one can walk back and forth. The changing of the guards was pretty interesting, but overall like most things in the military I just find the whole thing odd. But that's just me. After watching the changing of the guards we proceed on with the trolley ride where a few more head stones were pointed out. We also got to see the the US Marine Corps War Memorial (Iwo Jima Memorial) which is super impressive!

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/

From the cemetery we headed back into the city to check out the other National Air and Space museum within the National Mall. I'll be honest, maybe I got burnt out with the first one, or perhaps I don't care enough about planes and such but I found this one quite a bit more dull. Ironically it has way more stuff in it, like the Wright brother's plane, but it just didn't excited me as much as the first one. I did walk away really wanting to watch Apollo 13 again though so I guess it managed to intrigue me a bit.

https://airandspace.si.edu/

Once we had seen all the planes we could possible take we headed out into the cold and wind and practically ran to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. Unfortunately we didn't have that much time to full explore the museum but it was still awesome. Animals from all over the world were on display (taxidermy style) but what I actually enjoyed most was a room filled with the most amazing photos ever. The talent that some of those photographers had was absolutely stunning! Unfortunately we were a bit rushed through that museum and to be fair we had been on our feet all day and were ready to call it quits with museums and head back to Walter Reed.

http://naturalhistory.si.edu/




DAY SIX:

Today we begin our trek home. After Derik got his final approval, with his eyes being 20/15 (!!!!) we began to make our way back up to New Jersey. But hold on, not so fast where would be the fun in going right back home. Instead we made a few pit stops.

Pit Stop Numero Uno was in Baltimore. Only a hop skip and jump away from D.C. we stopped in Baltimore and headed to the aquarium. Okay the aquarium is kind of insanely expensive and if we had done any research what so ever we probably would have nexed the whole idea BUT we didn't and we had already paid to park the car so it only logically made sense to pay more to go into an aquarium. I'd say it was almost worth it. I mean they had a little dolphin show which was really cool, there are more fish than probably any other museum I have ever been in and they have an awesome jellyfish room ( i have an odd love for jellyfish). They even have an Australian section that has a few reptiles, amphibians and birds which was pretty neat. In the end I'd say it is worth a go, just be prepared for the $$

http://www.aqua.org/

That wasn't our only stop on our way home. With less than an hour to spare we made it to Philadelphia and parked right outside the Mint. It was actually a pretty neat place. Two levels one being a it more museumesq and the other affording you the opportunity to look down on where our coinage is actually made. It was pretty neat to see how the whole process worked.

But again we were a bit rushed through the whole thing. The scolding voice over the speakers essentially telling us to get out!

http://www.usmint.gov/mint_tours/?action=philadelphia

Not done with Philly we walked over to the Liberty Bell where we took a few photos and called the trip good.



We headed back to my folks house arriving a full four days after we had intended. What I must say is though, if you are going to Washington D.C. February is a perfect time to go. Sure it was a bit cold on a few days but if you main goal is museums it is a perfect time for it. As we investigated some of the places we wanted to check out while we were here we read review after review discussing the lines. We didn't stand in one line. I mean not even a line of one other person in front of you. We strolled right on through, we didn't have to worry about time passes or forgoing one museum because we were in line for another.

I'm sure it might look prettier in the spring, summer and fall but again if your a museum buff you are barely appreciating that as you hope from building to building. So forgo the lines, enjoy the cheaper priced hotels and take advantage of all the museums you can possible stand!

---