A North Lincolnshire woman who was told she was registered blind after a scary incident on the road in which she didn’t see a vehicle until it was directly in front of her has bravely spoken out about her diagnosis – and says she isn’t letting it stop her.
Simone Woods, 51, who lives in Winteringham, was left in a “state of shock” when she was first diagnosed with glaucoma – a common eye condition where the optic nerve is damaged – in 2015 after experiencing severe headaches.
The NHS manager said her eye pressure level was so high at 48 – compared to a normal reading of between 10 and 20 – that opticians initially thought the machine was broken. Several weeks after her diagnosis, a further test revealed she had “significant” vision loss in her right eye.
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Simone said: “I was just in a massive state of shock. I’d only just met my now-husband, and I was facing the reality that I could go blind. You need to inform the DVLA that you have this eye condition, and I thought, ‘What happens if I lose my driving licence?’ I rode a motorbike independently. One of my major hobbies was photography, and it struck me that I wouldn’t be able to do all the things I’d taken for granted. I didn’t know where to turn.”
After being given a limited driving licence, Simone’s condition worsened and she underwent three operations to insert artificial vessels to drain excess fluid and relieve pressure from both her left and right eyes, and a further procedure to remove cataracts and scar tissue. She was then told that her condition was stable, and continued with her life as normal.
(Image: Graham Millett)
But in 2021, as she was driving from North Ferriby to Scunthorpe, Simone said a wagon “suddenly appeared” on the right side of the road. She realised she had not seen it until it was directly in front of her. Six weeks later, she was told to stop driving altogether “if [she] values [her] life” – and that her vision had deteriorated so much that she was now registered blind.
Simone said: “I went in to see the consultant and he did some field of vision tests. It became immediately obvious that I wasn’t seeing very much at all. I’d lost a hell of a lot of vision on the right side and I came out in floods of tears. It was just the realisation that my eyes had deteriorated, and it was a similar situation on the left side.
“I went back for a retinopathy test and the consultant sat me down and told me that my level of sight appears to be very low. He asked me if I drive and I said yes, and he said, ‘Not if you value your life’. That point was worse than me being told I have glaucoma.
“The reality was, I couldn’t drive. It wasn’t safe for me to be behind a wheel or on a motorbike. I went back to work in floods of tears. Someone had pulled the rug from underneath me and I felt like I’d fallen into a big black hole. It was the reality of, things have to change, and quickly.”
Simone then received a letter which stated she was registered blind.
(Image: Submitted)
“It said that my eyesight had deteriorated so much that I was now registered blind. I never even thought I was officially blind, it was just the third blow,” she said.
“My son was 16 when I got diagnosed and the first thing I thought was, ‘Is this hereditary?’. And then I was thinking, ‘Am I going to be able to see him walk down the aisle, will I see my first granddaughter or grandson’, things like that.
“Having just come to terms with the fact I couldn’t drive anymore, I then had to come to terms with the fact that I was blind and disabled. That’s a hell of a thing to come to terms with, it’s one thing to take your independence away but another to put a label on it. I’d been thinking everything was stable.”
Following her diagnosis, Simone – who works as an Assistant Divisional General Manager at Scunthorpe General Hospital – was supported to work from home and had several adjustments put in place to ensure she could still carry out her role.
She continued: “Access to Work came and did an assessment to see what could be put in place. I have a daylight lamp, accessibility on my laptop, a larger monitor, and a technology called OrCam which sits on your spectacles and reads text from a book or instructions.
(Image: Submitted)
“You can point at the text and it reads it for you – it uses Artificial Intelligence to recognise text and read it out. It can also recognise people’s faces. If I’m in a crowded room and I point to someone, it will say who the person is. The technology in doing the job that I do meant that I didn’t need to learn Braille.”
Simone was also matched to a guide dog, Mervin, who helps her navigate day-to-day life with her deteriorating sight, which she compares to “looking through a Smartie tube”.
“If you look through a Smartie tube, you can only see what is directly in front of you, and if I’m directly looking at something I can see the general outline. I can’t make out the detail of people’s faces, I can only make out the features and shape, I recognise people more from their voice.”
“But my blindness isn’t going to stop me and I’m going to prove that this isn’t the end,” she said.
“I’m doing a Masters in Senior Leadership and my dissertation is about disability not being a barrier to leadership. I work in a hospital and I’m surrounded by people with worse health conditions, and that always brings it home to me.
“I might be losing my sight but I’ve got four working limbs, four healthy children and a loving family around me. I look around and know that there are people so much worse off than me. My advice to anyone in my situation would be take it one day at a time, count your blessings and think about what you can do, not what you’ve lost. It’s not going to stop me.”
Original artice: https://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/all-about/scunthorpe
