Other feedback I got on the post was that in some countries you don't need several days of checks before getting the surgery. In some places they do it on the same day.
I live in the U.S. and had my surgery done in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. I didn't have to go through several days of preliminaries -- just an eye exam from a local optometrist in advance of the surgery.
That's the case in Mexico. I was lucky because 10 years ago when I was about to have LASIK (in Cancun), the company that was going to do it had their laboratories completely destroyed due to a hurricane (in Cancun). For this reason they asked some private eye clinic to lend their equipment (for LASIK surgery). BUT this clinic examined throughly all the patients that went for surgery. At the end, I was not a candidate fro LASIK because my cornea is very thin.
So I would definitely suggest people not to scrimp on tests before the operation.
About the halo effect around bright points of light after dark that the author mentions -- over a period of years this effect has diminished for me as the seam around the surgery cut has gradually smoothed itself out. Now, after dark, stars and other points of light are nearly as cleanly focused as they would be to one with naturally good vision.
Overall, after over a decade of experience, I'm very glad I got this surgery. Because I'm in my 60s, I need to wear reading glasses for close work (true for everyone at my age), but in outdoor activities like kayaking and skiing where distant vision predominates, activities where glasses were once a real pain, the surgery really pays off.
Definitely recommended.