LASIK Laser Surgery Cures Near Blindness

Twenty years of blindness cured in ten minutes.

	Dr. Will Horsley performing LASIK laser eye surgery on his brother, Joshua, at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

Joshua Horsley, son of Drs. Margaret and Ernie Horsley and brother of Will Horsley, had been becoming progressively more nearsighted since grade school days. For the last two decades, he has been legally blind. Joshua Horsley had now graduated from medical school and was beginning his internship and long hours and frequent all night call.

Under these conditions, he was becoming contact lens intolerant and hated glasses. They were just one more hassle in an overloaded schedule. On Wednesday, January 26, 2000, Joshua and his wife, Janelle also a physician, arrived from California and each had both eyes treated with LASIK surgery for nearsightedness.

The next day, they both saw 20/20 and were able to drive themselves in for their post-operative checkup. Three days later, they were back in the California where the following week they saw 20/15 in each eye. Ten days later, Janelle Horsley, Joshua's wife, was off in Guam on a student missionary tour which included scuba diving in off time. She stated, "For the first time I could actually see the fish and coral with great clarity instead of the blur that I always had before."

This experience is shared with approximately 1.2 million Americans each year undergoing the LASIK laser eye surgery. Dr. Will Horsley has been performing refractive surgery for over ten years and has performed over 4,000 procedures. For the past five years, he has been on the laser staff of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and has performed hundreds of laser eye surgeries there. Dr. Horsley states, "I feel very good about the procedure or I would not offer it to my brother, especially not to both eyes at once."

Refractive surgery has come of age and is an excellent, safe and predictable procedure and LASIK is the procedure of choice for most people. The LASIK, stands for laser in situ keratomileusis.

MIDDLESEX EAST appearing in Daily Times - Chronicle (Reading, Wobum, Winchester, Burlington, Wakefield), Lynnfield Villager, Reading Update, No. Reading Transcript, Wilmington & Tewksbury Town Crier, Stoneham Independent