You know folks – *adjusts fedora with slip of paper reading “Press” tucked in the hatband* – during my long decades of journalistic offerings to the twin goddesses of my profession – the Laser and the Muse – both the critic dwelling in his ivory tower and the everyman in the streets dyed ebony by its shadow agree that I’ve captured the spirit of our modern age to a degree unprecedented in the medium of blogs having to do with laser eye surgery and cosmetics. But despite the avalanche of plaudits under which my career is buried, I am a humble man and cannot help but cast a jaundiced eye upon my own work. All too often an effluvium of fantastic drivel palls my writing. Sometimes I write about giant lava-proof penguins. At other times, violent Irish saints deemed inappropriate for the site and thus deleted.

*Bangs fist on old-fashioned desk for emphasis* Well no more! From this moment forward I shall only write about that which matters! Namely our mad scrabble to domiante Toronto’s airwaves FOR THE REST OF TIME!

And what a scrabble it’s been. First, we had tamer of lions and follower of Zoroaster Dr. Juliusz Gorecki. Then, NHL superstar Ian White. Now, Dr. David Rootman and certain of his sundry corneal specialists have emerged from the Bunker Philosophicus after three months of intense vocal training and communing with the ghosts of Orson Welles and Lee De Forest on matters radiotelegraphic, an effort made possible by the occult ministrations of Grimsdale Whelpwood Mackenzie, grand magus of The Hermeneutic Order of the Aluminum Sunset.  So you better believe they’re ready for the big time!

Dr. Rootman quickly assumed the title King of Radioland with not one but two radio spots for your listening pleasure. Topics of discussion include:

• How we choose only the finest surgeons to perform laser eye surgery at our centre.
• The role age plays in deciding which treatment a patient will receive.
• The nature of keratoconus.
• How to choose the laser eye clinic that’s best for you.
• The most rewarding surgery that Dr. Rootman has ever performed!

And just what is the most rewarding surgery Dr. Rootman has ever performed? Why not take a listen and find out?

Yonge Eglinton Laser Eye Centre 2011-12 (Sponsor Profile-Dr Rootman 01) by Yonge Eglinton Laser

Ah, what a mingled feeling it is to cast my thoughts back to my Antarctican childhood, when me, Snowshoe Jed, Zig-Zag, Brain-Brain, Ruffle-Tuffle Jim-Joe, Human Yeti, and the merry remainder of my misfit chums spent the spring of our youth leavening the wintry gloom of our sun-shy corner of the earth by devoting hour after hour to penguin tossing. Those who condescend to fling penguin tossing into opprobrium doubtless want an ear for music, for the music of the spheres performed by an infinite choir of cherubim cannot outgrace the percussive beauty of a flung penguin hitting an aluminum shed with a sloppily-painted target on the side.**

But it all went wrong when one tossed penguin too many awoke the ire of Kkw’qaatha, Hive Queen of All Penguins. One black Tuesday she roared out of her labyrinthine palace within the bowels of Mount Erebus and dogged us across the Antarctic deserts, all thirteen feet of her lava-resistant body simultaneously taut and supple with wrath. After reducing my chums to a pulpy crimson rash on the wastes of our mirthless continent, she spared me by merely doing away with my eyes with her beak of fangs. But why did she not kill me? With my eyes gone, so too were my dreams of being a professional penguin tosser, and without that, why live? Why live…

Anyway! The point I’m labouring towards is this: inadequate vision can hamper one’s enjoyment of winter sports, especially if you have professional ambitions. So if you were, say, a professional hockey player who wants to get laser eye surgery, you wouldn’t want to trust your faculty of sight with anyone but the very best, would you? Certainly not — which is why Ian White chose to have Dr. David Rootman and his sundry corneal specialists at the Yonge Eglinton Laser Eye and Cosmetic Centre in Toronto perform his surgery.

If you didn’t already know, Ian White is currently a defenceman for the Detroit Red Wings and boasts previous stints with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Calgary Flames, Carolina Hurricanes, and San Jose Sharks. His list of accomplishments rivals that of YELC’s very own Zoroastrian high priest and ersatz-Australian rock ventriloquist, Dr. Juliusz Gorecki, and like Dr. G, Mr. White sought to dominate the invisible but very real kingdom of Radioland when he sat down with Alan Cross of 102.1 FM and AM640 for a testimonial to YELC’s unquestionable brilliance in every respect. Why not take a listen?

YELC – Ian White by Yonge Eglinton Laser

“The surgeons there were fantastic. They made me feel comfortable and safe. I’m still 20/20, and loving life on and off the ice.” Should you have laser eye surgery with us, you will no doubt echo Mr. White’s statements to a silent applause of congratulative smiles amongst family and friends. And for that, inquisitive reader, I envy you — *intuitively faces southward in a pang of melancholy* — It is a feeble present I build atop my ruined past, for the only sweetness I can divine from its parched earth is a single joke I keep using at parties — “Q: What’s black and white and red all over? A: The giant blood-smeared penguin that slaughtered my friends” — and all that prompts are a few nervous laughs and the odd puzzled glance downward into a glass of scotch.

** The Yonge Eglinton Laser Centre does not endorse throwing or otherwise harming penguins in any way, unless they kill your friends and rip your eyes out.

If you’ve ever taken a look at our surgery suite, you may have noticed a rather curious vase of eyeglasses sitting on a table pushed against the northern wall of the room.

“You know, I have,” you say while tenting your fingers and settling into your dark-green overstuffed leather armchair in a manner professorial. “Is it a trophy? Is it there because each pair of glasses is symbolic proof of Dr. David Rootman and his sundry corneal specialists masterfully conquering surgery after surgery, the way pilots and bomber crews during the Second World War used to paint planes and bombs on their fuselages to represent the number of enemy fighters or targets they’d gotten rid of?”

Um…not a bad guess, inquisitive reader, but no, not really. That would imply a level of braggadocio that’s not really our style.

You see, at the Yonge Eglinton Laser Eye and Cosmetic Centre in Toronto, we’re interested in providing people with the gift of improved vision in any way we can, which is what makes our partnership with Lions Clubs International and our contribution to their Eyeglass Recycling Program so rewarding. As their website states:

“According to The World Health Organization, 153 million people have uncorrected refractive errors (near-sightedness, far-sightedness or astigmatism). Most of these vision impairments are quickly diagnosed and easy to treat with corrective lenses.

Still, millions of people in developing nations are pushed deeper into poverty simply because they don’t have glasses. They can’t learn, because reading is difficult. They can’t work to the best of their ability, because they can’t see clearly.”

This is a pretty regrettable state of affairs, but it’s not quite as difficult to amend as one might imagine. After all, it costs Lions Clubs International “less than US$0.08 to provide a pair of recycled eyeglasses and change someone’s life” — and you can be the one who makes that change! If you have a pair of glasses you no longer need, you can bring them to our location at 2345 Yonge Street, Suite 212 the next time you come in for an appointment and drop them in the aforementioned vase. Someone from the Lions Clubs comes by once a month to collect them. You can also drop glasses off at Lions-sponsored collection boxes located throughout Toronto or mail them directly to your nearest Lions Eyeglass Recycling Centre.

If you’d like to learn more about Lions Clubs’ Eyeglass Recycling Program, please visit their website. It’s something we’re very proud to be a part of, and you will be too!

“During the bounteous unfurling of youth every man of sensitivity and intellect surveys all of sublime creation within and without, necessarily becoming an eye all-appraising, a craving manifest — he wishes to be Superman or Cyclops from the X-Men. But as he ages, the ripened wisdom plucked from the fields of knowledge by all from Heraclitus to Kant dispenses with this craving and replaces it with another –  there are many heroes who shoot lasers from their eyes, but it is perhaps the greatest heroes of all who have lasers shot at theirs.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson —

Were you aware that Yonge Eglinton Laser Eye and Cosmetic Centre in Toronto offers special rates on laser eye surgery for HEROES? No? Well, we do.

For centuries one question has baffled those with nothing better to do: what makes a hero? A hero is not as readily discernable from the slovenly multitudes as one might think. Take the classic example of the caped do-gooder. Sure, he can defeat unpleasant people with names like Dr. Planetcrippler, but his fondness for spandex and wearing undergarments on the outside of his clothing make him an object of ridicule and make us question his sanity. And what about the man who rescues a cat from a tree? He seems like an obvious hero. But what if he butchers this cat and feeds it to a starving Neo-Nazi?

I can sense your brow furrowing, inquisitive reader — these are questions in which a thousand moral entanglements present themselves simultaneously. Luckily Dr. David Rootman and our sundry corneal specialists, great thinkers all, resolved to banish these questions to the realm of answerhood some time ago. They retreated to the Bunker Philosophicus, a spheroid marvel of subterranean architecture dedicated to pure thought, located just above the Earth’s mantle and several miles directly below our location at 2345 Yonge Street. They emerged a few hours later with a definitive list of heroes. Great job, brainboxes! Here is the result of their hard work — and if you’re a member of one of these groups or subgroups, you can get laser eye surgery for $250 off the regular price per eye! Wow!

- Emergency Response Workers

• Police
• Firefighters
• Paramedics
• Doctors
• Nurses

- Public Works

• Ontario Hydro
• Enbridge
• City Employees
• Public Transportation

- Professional Courtesy

• Optometrists & staff
• Opthalmologists & staff
• Physicians & staff
• Immediate family members of above

- Seniors ( age 60+)

- Teachers

- Military

- Students

There you have it. Heroes. And who needs wonky vision if you’re a hero? Come on in and get it fixed for cheap, you wonderful ol’ hero you!

Optometrist. Romance novelist. Christmas tree farmer. Lion tamer. Hip hop mogul. Zoroastrian high priest. Lead ventriloquist of an AC/DC cover band.

Toronto’s premier radio personality?

Yes, inquisitive reader, I nod affirmatively in your general direction because it’s as true as the day is long – our very own Dr. Juliusz Gorecki has added yet another talent to an already impressive arsenal. He recently sat down with DJ Mad Dog of 99.9 FM Virgin Radio to do a couple of promotional spots for YELC.

So what do they get up to? Well, they cover Dr. Gorecki’s non-harrowing account of undergoing laser eye surgery. They subtly boast about our state of the art technology and peerless team of corneal specialists. Even our own Dr. David Rootman, a man notoriously hard to please in matters radiotelegraphic, praises Dr. Gorecki’s “great radio voice presence!” In short, they’re worth hearing and will literally make your head explode with delight.* So why not give them a listen?

Yonge Eglinton Laser Centre 2011-11 (Dr Gorecki 01) by Laser Eye Surgery

Yonge Eglinton Laser Centre 2011-11 (Dr Gorecki 02) by Laser Eye Surgery

Also, that last part wasn’t some sort of half-hearted suggestion. We urge you to meet and bask in the magnificence of Dr. Gorecki now that he’s left the swollen, grubby ranks of the hoi polloi and entered the realm of true superstardom. We have hundreds of 8 x 10 glossies available at the front desk that Dr. Gorecki will happily sign for fairweather fans. He will also indulge the more determined autograph-seekers amongst you by signing one of his famed romance novels, Christmas trees, or tamed lions.**

* Not literally.

** No.

Wooooooo-o-o-o-o-o! Halloween descends upon Toronto! Ill-intentioned spectres! Shadowy figures! Ghostly cackling! Werewolves punching vampires and so forth! And perhaps most terrifyingly of all, dishonesty in advertising. In one of our previous entries, we warned you about advertisements boasting deceptively low prices for laser eye surgery. We suggested that you ask your LASIK provider the following questions:

• What is included?
• What is not included?
• What kind of technology is used?
• What will I have to pay if enhancement surgery becomes necessary?
• How many follow-up visits will I need to make, and at what cost?

At that point, you no doubt leapt up and narrowed your eyes sternly at the monitor: “Well that’s all well and good, but how would you answer these questions?” We’re glad you asked, inquisitive reader. After all, as a business that provides laser eye surgery, Yonge Eglinton Laser in Toronto is all about clarity.  So fear not — there aren’t any tricks with this treat! When you book surgery with us, you’ll receive everything you need before, during, and after your procedure. This includes:

• Wavescan, and other pre-op testing if needed.
• Surgery only using the most advanced technology: we offer both 100% blade free and 100% customized.
• Surgery provided by some of Canada’s leading corneal speacialists.
• At-home care kit: includes all required medications, eye drops, goggles, sunglasses.
• 24-7 access to our surgeons post-surgery.
• Post-op visits up to 3 months post-surgery.
• Lifetime commitment.
• VIP status – you will join our growing community of Visually Improved Persons in Toronto. You will receive exclusive information regarding upcoming promotions and special events.

Well, it’s been two weeks now and you’d think the novelty of laser eye surgery would have started to wear off by now. Nope! I’m still blown away on a regular basis. I had my one week post-op appointment last Thursday with Dr. Yeung and it’s official: my vision is better than 20/20 in each eye! As a bonus the bruising on the whites of my eyes is starting to fade so I am getting progressively fewer curious looks on the subway.

I’ve had a bunch of “firsts” since the last time I wrote. It was amazing going to my first concert without contacts because of a couple of things: the clear vision of course, but also because concerts tend to go late and be held in smoky environments, both of which aren’t conducive to comfortable contact lens wear. My first time at the gym after surgery was great as well since the sweat wasn’t getting all over my glasses or fogging up my contacts. A few days ago I went to the movies for the first time since the operation and I’m not sure if it was the laser eyes or not but “Thor” wasn’t actually as terrible as I expected.

Over the May 2-4 long weekend I went to a cottage with a group of friends (it’s a beautiful thing not having your contacts dry out when you’re fishing on the dock till 4am). Most of them had watched the video of my surgery online and they were eager to hear how I was doing after the operation. My answer to all of them was the same answer I usually get from my patients: I should have done this years ago!

After brushing my teeth before bed last night, I realized everything still looked clear yet I was automatically reaching for my eyes to remove my contacts. Waaaaait a second, no need for that anymore! Yep, it’s my second day after LASIK and I’m loving it more and more. I was expecting to be very light sensitive yesterday and for the vision to be fairly blurry but both of those things did NOT come to pass. I had my blinds wide open all day and was admiring how clear the Toronto skyline looked. Today things look even sharper than yesterday and I can watch TV and use the computer quite comfortably. I probably could have gone to work today but hey, who am I to complain about an extra day off?

I had my one-day follow-up with Dr. Rootman yesterday afternoon and my vision was better than 20/20 in each eye. There was a couple of small wrinkles in the flap of my right eye but Dr. Rootman smoothed these out for me in about 30 seconds; he makes this stuff looks easy (it’s not, believe me). I have a little bit of bruising on the white parts of my eye from the suction ring used during the surgery but that’s quite normal. I will, however, probably have to spend some time tomorrow morning explaining to my patients why I look like I came to the office straight from participating in a boxing match (a match that, based on appearances, I lost). Once again, that’s a small price to pay for my bionic eyes. I still stop every couple of hours and look around just to admire how clear everything it is. I’m sure at some point I’ll get used to it but right now I can’t imagine it getting old anytime soon.

My bedroom window faces the CN tower. Sounds like a great view to wake up to right? Well, I wasn’t ever able to properly wake up to that view; it usually just looked like a big tall blob when I opened my blinds. That all changed today, however! And yes, that means my surgery went off without a hitch (other than some technical difficulties with the stream, thanks again for your patience and understanding).

So how was the surgery? Honestly, it was no worse than getting a cavity filled at the dentist’s office (and I used have a lot of cavities as a kid, being a candy fiend and all). I didn’t really have time to get nervous about the operation ahead of time since we were frantically trying to set up for the live stream. All of a sudden I’m lying down in the operating room getting the areas around my eyes disinfected. Before I know it, Dr. Rootman is telling me to look at the flashing red light and attaching the suction ring to my right eye (the suction ring is used in cutting the flap in the cornea). According to a couple of my friends who had the operation 2 months ago, this was supposed to be the worst part; I was told to expect an extremely uncomfortable pressure sensation when the ring suctions to the eye. Well, maybe because I was warned ahead of time, I didn’t really feel any glaring amount of discomfort.

I think the craziest (in an interesting way) part of the whole process was Dr. Rootman lifting away my corneal flap. You can see your whole world moving around as the flap is manipulated and then all of a sudden – when the flap is lifted – everything goes blurry. You stare at an extremely blurry red light while the second laser re-shapes your cornea and when the flap is put back into place things are in focus like they’ve never been before. The whole thing was over before I knew it. Many thanks to Dr Rootman and the surgery technicians (Laura, Olivia, and Magdi) for talking to me all along, letting me know that everything was going well and that I was doing great. It’s always nice to hear some words of encouragement.

Most of the ride home I was occupied by my sister making fun of the ultra-stylish goggles I was wearing. I didn’t feel any dryness or discomfort until we got to my building (that’s about the time the anaesthetic wore off); that also happened to be the same time the sedative I was given finally kicked in so I went straight to bed. My eyes themselves felt fine but they were watering a lot, which caused my nose to get all stuffed up. After a couple of hours of napping in between putting in my drops and blowing my nose I finally passed out and didn’t awake until 9am today. Today the eyes feel great – not nearly as dry or light sensitive as I expected. My 1 day check-up is in a couple of hours so I’ll let you know how it goes. Based on how clear everything looks right now, I expect nothing but smooth sailing. I’d say a stuffy nose is a small price to pay for laser eyes, wouldn’t you?

Thank you to everyone that tuned in to our online seminar last night.

As you saw, we experienced technical difficulties while live-streaming the surgery. We apologize for the inconvenience. We are working diligently to get the footage posted our site as soon as possible.

Everyone that participated in live chat was extremely understanding and patient with us. Thank you so much.

You will be happy to hear that surgery went very smoothly and we anticipate a smooth and quick recovery for Dr. Gorecki. He will be blogging later today after he has his one-day post-op appointment so be sure to look out for it.