Dr. Joseph Osmond is an Ocular Disease and Refractive Surgery Resident at nJoy Vision OKC. He is also a recent Visian ICL™ patient.
After several years as a practicing optometrist and seeing refractive surgery patients, he decided to gain advanced specialty training in refractive and ocular surgery through an accredited optometric residency at nJoy Vision OKC & BVA Edmond.
In October 2014, Dr. Osmond underwent the Visian ICL™ procedure at our OKC center. Like many, many others, he put his vision in the hands of Dr. Brad Britton and the advanced technology provided by nJoy Vision. And like countless others, nJoy Vision and Dr. Britton have given Dr. Osmond a fresh perspective.
This is Dr. Osmond’s testimony about his Visian ICL™ procedure and his experience with nJoy Vision.
Visian ICL™ from the Eyes of Dr. Joseph Osmond,
an nJoy Vision Resident and Visian ICL™ Patient
June 1989 was a monumental month for me. I was 11 years old and my family was moving from Washington State to Alabama. I was going to start a new school and meet new friends. I was also going to see the optometrist to be fit with contact lenses and leave my superiorly, rose tinted glasses behind for good.
From that point on I wore my gas permeable “hard” contact lenses faithfully, every day for 25 years. I wore them to countless scout camping and hiking trips where I would bring my water purifier to purify freezing stream water to clean my contact lenses off each morning. I would swim in muddy lake water with them. I would leave them in cups at night with water in them to store them while sleeping at friends’ houses. I wore them for years while living in third world countries where I would use bottled water to clean them.
Admittedly, I was a classic “bad” patient. I wore my contacts from five in the morning until eleven at night. For months, I would forget my glasses even existed. I loved my contact lenses!
But I still always dreamed what it would be like to wake up in the morning like all those people who didn’t wear any kind of vision correction; to go swimming and open my eyes underwater; to wake up at night to investigate a sound in the house without having to reach clumsily for my glasses; to not have those periodic times (like 11,000 feet up on a mountainside with no contact lens solution in sight) when my contact lens slipped into the side of my eye and caused tremendous irritation.
As much as I loved them, I dreamed about freedom from contact lenses. Then I went to optometry school and learned my prescription was too high for LASIK or PRK to be an option (it’s not every day you see a -12.00D patient).
“So now what?” I would ask myself. “Is there even an option for me?”
Then, in my fourth year of school, on a rotation through a refractive surgery center, I observed placement of the Visian ICL™ in someone’s eyes. I remember how happy they were. I remember thinking… no, KNOWING… “I want THAT!” That was 2007.
October 2014 was a monumental month for me. I was 36 years old and doing a one year optometry residency before heading to Chicago. Through the facilities and doctors of nJoy Vision and Dr. Brad Britton, I had the opportunity to finally have ICL surgery.
My wife and others kept asking me if I was nervous, but I couldn’t figure out why. I had no anxiety about the procedure at all, even knowing the potential risks. Okay, so maybe one true concern I had was if I was going to get the same “eagle eye, 20/15 and pushing 20/10 vision” I was used to with my gas permeable contact lenses. That is being pretty picky though, isn’t it? From an optometrist’s viewpoint, I realize the value of having the same experiences my patients have. Not that I want to go through all the problems that come through my door, but my discussions have a little more emotion in them when I am talking to patients about things I too have experienced.
Having gone through ICL surgery now, I feel more genuine when I’m talking to my patients about the little bit of glare they may have right after surgery, or the little bit of dry eye that they could feel, and that it DOES get better! I can share in their excitement in anticipating better vision before surgery and in experiencing it afterward, because wanting, and getting that “eagle vision” is not being too picky.
As Tom Danielson (another ICL recipient and professional cycler) put it, “It is truly the Ferrari of vision correction procedures.” I couldn’t agree more now that I have 20/10 vision out of each eye.
I have always been grateful for the vision correction that modern science has been able to provide me. Even though I was embarrassed by my thick, pop bottle glasses, it is better to have them than to be trampled by a horse, which surely would have happened to me if I had lived 300 years ago. I was extremely happy when contact lenses replaced my glasses and gave me so much more freedom than I had ever had.
Today, I am absolutely ECSTATIC about my new vision with ICL correction. Having the surgery is one of the most life-changing events of my life (and I’m married and have four beautiful children).
I still have my original gas permeable lens removal tool that I plan on sending back to my first optometrist with a note saying “Thank you for a wonderful 25 years.” But now, I’m looking forward to the next 25 and beyond…
Leave a Reply