First of all, I have an appointment with an ophthalmologist on december 23rd. I'd like to know what to expect, so i'll start at the beginning.

I was born severely cross-eyed. Without three eye operations by the time I was 18 months, I would have remained that way. In that period, I had surgery on my right eye twice and my left eye once. At age six, I had surgery on my right eye again. I remember that surgery very well, and it went very well. At age eleven, I had another surgery on my right eye, and that one didn't go so well. It's the most horrible memory from my childhoo. I'll just leave it at that.

As I understand it, one of the muscles in my right eye grows at an exponential rate. I was actually told by my mother that it was my nerve that grew, but my limited study in anatomy told me that nerves don't grow. Back in the late '70's and early '80's, they fixed this problem by going in with a scalpel and hacking away. The problem is, my mother always kept me sheltered from that kind of information, and she honestly doesn't remember what it was all about anymore.

Now, i'm nearing 30, and these problems are coming back to haunt me. I've seen an optometrist every two years since age 18 except recently. Five years ago, my doctor told me that there was absolutely nothing wrong with my eyesight, and he wasn't going to prescribe eyeglasses anymore. He suggested that I see an ophthalmologist because of the symptoms I was complaining about. He seemed obviously perplexed. However, at the time, I had no health coverage. I continued to wear my old glasses that had a prescription to correct a slight stigmatism because it helped matters a bit. Over the past few months, I have noticed some problems start to develop. I actually have health coverage now, but the plan is only a year old. Until the first of the year, i'm covered to $1,000. After the first, i'm fully covered to $2,000.

My symptoms are rather complex, and i've been having trouble finding any resources online mainly because I don't have a name to go by. Put as plainly as possible, my eyes don't work together well. In order to get them to work together, it takes a concerted effort. This results is poor depth perception, which has plagued me my entire life. I could get around that symptom, but some others have started to develop. Glare has started to bother me severely to the point where I have to concentrate intensely to avoid going cross-eyed when driving at night. I don't drive at night anymore because of that. I also go to bed with a headache every night that i'm certain is from eye fatigue. I have a hard time making eye contact with people without my left eye floating. The more tired I get, the more difficult it is to keep my eyes under control. The problem is, when I use this effort to get my eyes to work together like they are supposed to, I don't quite see double, but the image doesn't completely blend together like it should (or like it used to).

I can tell that my right eye vision is better than my left eye. I asked my optometrist five years ago what was up with that, and he said my left eye had better than 20/20 vision. So I asked about my right eye, and his response was that he really didn't know. The vision in my right eye is quite acute. I can read a computer screen from across the room, and I can read road signs in the distance well before any passengers can.

I'd like to know what to expect before going to see this ophthalmologist. It's been twenty years since my last eye surgery, and my memories of it are very unpleasant. I've been told by a friend, who is an ophthalmologist, that eye surgery has advanced a long way in the last twenty years even if they still have to use a scalpel. Unforunately, he has been transfered away recently to a larger city, and I have no way of contacting him. When I told him of my symptoms, he said he'd have to examine me to make sense of it. The ophthalmologist who operated on my eyes when I was a kid passed away about ten years ago, so I can't use him as a resource either.

Does anyone have any ideas or references I can peruse to see what i'm in for? I'd just like a little background on what plagues my eyesight. I'd also like to know what i'm in for financially. Is $2,000 worth of coverage enough to handle such a procedure these days? Or am I going to have to fork into my deductible to get this taken care of? I don't think it can wait much longer, though, as it is seriously starting to affect my life.

Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for any answers.