ophthalmology /oph·thal·mol·o·gy/ (of″thal-mol´ah-je)

So scratch that about the Neuro-Opthalmologist. I gathered some great advice to see a regular Opthalmologist first because my double vision may be from damaged eye muscles.

Today I visited a clinic and gained some very helpful insight into my problem!

First, let me just vent and say that a brain injury in and of itself is incredibly neurologically taxing. Add double vision on top of that and, well, a girl's brain can go crazy! The person who performed my eye exam said, "Wow, you can really control your eye movement well!" It was difficult for him to see my sporadic eye movement at first because I've learned how to compensate. I'll take that as a compliment.

He said when you slam the front of your head, like I did, and your brain bounces back and forth, it damages the back, where all the vision nerves are (that said in total lay-man's terms).

Here's what we discovered: My double vision stems from a damaged nerve, not a muscle! And, geez, I can't believe I've lived with this problem for such.a.long.time, because a simple surgery can fix it! Why didn't I look into this before? Actually, I do remember seeing an Opthal. shortly after my accident, and he said surgery would not help -- granted, that was 16 years ago, and medicine has improved since those days.

I am so excited because this means I've peeled away another layer of my onion!