Taylor met with the eye surgeon in Tampa this morning. She did some testing and concluded that his condition is "traumatic optic atrophy" caused by damage to the 6th nerve. The damage caused the double vision and nystagmus (shaking of the eye).
She said if she can completely correct the double vision with glasses, then surgery will likely fix the problem. This surgery is successful about 80% of the time. Taylor now has to turn his head to the right while continuing to look straight ahead to stop his eyes from shaking. This surgery should clear that up as well.
For now, she is prescribing some thin clear sheets of plastic that will go over one of his glasses lense in order to try and completely correct the double vision. If that works, she'll do the surgery as soon as he gets out of school for summer. If it doesn't work, then the surgery won't help.
During one test today, when he followed a light with a red lense over his left eye, he saw 2 lights. One was white (seen with his right eye) and the other was red. The red was below and to the left of the white, so the Dr. was able to measure the degree of misalignment. The surgery will straighten that out, and then the Dr. will shift both eyes to the right a little. Then, (if I understood the explanation right) when he focuses straight ahead the nystagmus shouldn't be a problem since the brain thinks it's his head shifted to the right, not his eyes that have been realigned.
He heads back to Tampa in a week for some further testing, but for now it looks like surgery in early summer.
