Glenys
Cookman’s sight was so poor she couldn’t see
beyond the end of her nose. Blighted by eye infections
and embarrassed to wear her special thick specs in public,
the 35-year-old mum became a prisoner in her own home….by
Paul Johnson.
I’ve
always had really bad eyesight. My one wish since I was a little
girl was that my eyes would be like everyone else’s.
But
at school I had to wear really thick glasses and got teased
about it a lot – I felt like a real ugly duckling.
I had contact lenses when I was 16. They were great because
no-one knew how bad my sight was. But they were expensive - £200
- because they had to be specially made. Most people who are
short-sighted have a prescription of minus 2 or minus 3. Mine
was minus 23.
About three years ago, my lifetime of contact lens use caught
up with me and I started suffering from really bad eye infections.
It felt like there was a piece of grit permanently stuck in
my eye.
I work as a dinner lady at a local school and I would drive
into work wearing contact lenses and then take them out during
the day because they were so uncomfortable.
Eventually last summer the pain got so bad – like needles
in my eyeball – that I couldn’t wear contact lenses
at all.
The only alternative was to wear special glasses, which cost £700
to be tailor-made. They had extremely thick lenses, like milk
bottle bottoms, because they were so strong.
The glasses made me look terrible, with little piggy eyes,
and I couldn’t bring myself to go out in them.
I’d wear them at home in front of my partner Paul and
children Rachel and Cara, but I wouldn’t answer the front
door.
To hide my eyes when I went out, I used clip-on dark shades
on the glasses. This worked during the day, although people
often gave me a funny look. But in the evening the glasses
were just too dark to see properly, so I stayed in. I was effectively
a prisoner in my own home. I didn’t allow anyone inside
the house. I didn’t even let my sister see me in the glasses
without the shades on. I never went out or socialised in the
evening. The kids couldn’t have their friends over, either.
I once walked into a fridge door, denting my glasses and giving
myself a black eye, and had to be signed off work sick.
Some days, I’d just sit and weep. I was terrified I’d
go blind as my eyesight became steadily worse.
I went to see my optician, desperate for a solution, and he
suggested I talk to a consultant ophthalmologist he knew.
The surgeon, Rob Morris, who runs Grange Eye Consultants, said
I was one of the most serious cases of short-sightedness he
had ever seen. He recommended surgery in which a contact lens
would be implanted into my eye. But he couldn’t guarantee
how much sight would be restored.
The surgery was straightforward – it took 15 minutes for
each eye. As I had a local anaesthetic I was awake and didn’t
feel a thing.
As soon as I sat up in the operating theatre after the first
operation, the whole room came into focus and I could see Mr
Morris’s face. It was like a miracle.
My eyes were a bit red, but cleared up the next day. And two
days after the last operation I was back driving a car again – without glasses. It cost £4,400 to have both eyes
done, but it’s the best investment I’ve ever made.
You can’t put a price on your eyesight.
Now I have better vision than I have ever had in my whole life.
It’s very hard to explain to people just how amazing
this is.
Everything looks different now because I can see things in so
much more detail and colour. The operation has transformed my
life.
THE
RESULTS
Mr Rob Morris, who is also an NHS consultant, is the
eye surgeon who operated on Glenys.
‘Glenys’ eyesight
was very unusual – very
few people have a prescription of
-23’, he says. ‘The thinness of her cornea meant
she wasn’t suitable for laser surgery to correct her
vision.
Even I was surprised by the transformation
in her sight after the operation. It’s very satisfying
to have such a great result.
Glenys is now 6/6 in one eye – the
best one – and
6/9 in the other. This means that in the poorer eye she can
see at six metres what the average person can see at nine
metres. It’s not a problem, though, and she can still
drive without glasses.’
WHAT'S
INVOLVED IN THE OP?
Implantable contact lens (ICL) surgery
uses lenses similar to normal contact lenses – except
they are inserted inside the eye itself. This means it works
with the eye’s
own lens to properly focus light on the retina.
It is intended
to be a permanent implant that should last a lifetime
but it can be reversed and the lens removed.
Who is it suitable
for?
ICL is most effective for patients who suffer from
extreme levels of poor vision or have thin corneas, making
them unsuitable for laser eye surgery.
What are the risks?
The risks
are minimal but can include infections and the very small
chance of triggering a cataract due to the delicate nature
of the operation.
Grange
Eye Consultants can treat a number of eyesight problems and
work from clinics in Hampshire and Somerset. For more info,
call 02380 258417 or visit www.grangeeyeconsultants.com
DAILY
MIRROR- 7 APRIL 2005
