Don’t remember the details of the exercises as it was long ago - some russian self help book, I think by Mirzakarim Norbekov , but the essence was to get one of the “eye test” boards and each morning focus on the elements you can see best and try to resolve just the ones below. Do it enough and you slowly start to “go down” the chart, getting better and better.
As for lasik - I blogged about it back in the day - https://medium.com/@ivankerin/a-humble-mans-account-of-the-l...
The problems - one mate didn’t properly understand the commands he was given, (not a native speaker) and ended up poking his eye sort of mid operation. They fixed his good eye, and told him to wait for a couple of weeks until the “flap” healed and regrew so they could do it again on the other eye. Totally avoidable if he was paying attention - I had no problems and it was over in like 5 mins.
Another mate didn’t get corrected to the exact focal length so they had to do it again a couple of months later. Not a big deal just unpleasant.
I decided to go for the operation after I had an eye infection and figured I was risking my eyes every time I was putting the contacts in, so might as well risk it once and be done with it. Glasses were not an option as I wanted (and still do) practice various sports, and -7 is not fun at all.