IT WAS BLURRY, LIKE LOOKING THROUGH A SET OF NET CURTAINS
MARY GLASS, an 88-yearold retired typist from
North London, finally had her sight-saving cataract operation last month – after suffering without treatment for more than five years.
By the time she had her procedure, the lens in her left eye had become so cloudy that it turned white.
‘I couldn’t see anything. I was so nervous to go outside in case I fell over, or had to cross a road, so I didn’t,’ says Mary. ‘I was also conscious of people seeing my eye because it looked white and scary.’
Mary noticed blurry vision in 2016. An optician diagnosed her with cataracts in both eyes and referred her to a hospital eye clinic.
But Mary didn’t attend her next appointment. ‘The thought of someone cutting open my eyes was too frightening, so I carried on,’ says the mother-of-two.
By early 2020, she could barely see. ‘It was like looking at everything through a pair of net curtains,’ she says. Then lockdown hit – and things quickly got worse. ‘I wasn’t able to get to the doctors because I was stuck inside,’ says Mary, who was advised by her GP to shield.
‘Staying indoors and staring at the television all day made my sight worse.’ In December 2020, Mary’s daughter Yvonne called her mother’s optician and asked for an urgent referral to an eye specialist. But it wasn’t until last month – more than a year later – that she had both eyes operated on.
It wasn’t a simple procedure. The hardened cataract had irritated the back of her eyes, causing inflammation. ‘It was very sore,’ Mary says. ‘I used drops for a month and it made me nervous to go outside in case anything got in my eye. I can see, but I’ve barely been out. I’m still cautious to cross the road.’