Fort Worth Mayor to Undergo Surgery to Correct Double Vision

The Fort Worth mayor will undergo eye surgery next week to correct a problem with double vision that has lingered since a bicycle accident last year.

Mayor Betsy Price said the surgery, which is planned for next Wednesday, will strengthen the muscles in her right eye.

"I'm ready; I guess as ready as you ever are if you are going to have surgery," she said.

Price has complained about problems with her peripheral vision since she crashed her bicycle along the Trinity Trails in east Fort Worth in June 2012.

The mayor was riding with her husband when she took the tumble. He called 911 for an ambulance.

"I was actually unconscious for about four-and-a-half minutes," she said in an interview at City Hall on Monday.

She said it would have been a lot worse if she had not been wearing not a helmet.

Price sustained a concussion and broke her collarbone. She had to wear an arm sling for more than a month.

Her shoulder healed, but she has had problems with her eyesight ever since.

"When you cut your eyes around to look at something, it's doubled up from about here on back," she said, pointing to the right side of her eye. "Looking straight at you is fine."

She wore corrective glasses for a time, which helped some. But the double vision in her periphery still bothers her.

"They kept thinking it might get better," she said. "Now they're saying, 'You haven't made any progress for four or five or six months,' so now it's time to do something."

Doctors tell her the chances the surgery will be successful are 90 percent.

Mayor Pro-Tem Zim Zimmerman will lead the city while she is off work for several days.

The mayor, an avid bicyclist for years, returned to bicycling soon after her accident.

She said she can't wait to get the surgery over so she get hop back on her bike.

"You can't let it stop you," she said. "You have to go on with what you enjoy and what you're passionate about."