Losing my sight
The sight loss was absolutely terrifying. I had three young children and I was trying to play it down as much as I could, because I didn't want to worry them. I couldn't drive and we were a mile and a half from the nearest bus stop. I couldn't recognise people, all I could see was silhouettes. It was really being dependent on people to take me to places.
Luckily, my husband was working nights at the time, so he was at home most of the time during the day and could help.
I had to have six weeks off work. At the time I was working as a community nurse and relied on driving, which I now couldn’t do. I work in the intermediate care team, where we support people in crisis to stay at home and avoid a hospital stay, so a lot of my job is driving to and from patients and doing assessments. Even things like using a blood pressure machine or thermometer were quite hard with my eyesight. Work were very good and supportive, and they gave me the more local patients so that I could walk to some of them.