22 FEATURE
Mary, from North Yorkshire, is a regular attender at worship in her local church. She worked for many years as a nursery nurse and enjoyed many kinds of handiwork in her spare time: tapestry, cross stitch, making her own clothes, painting and calligraphy. She led a banner-making group, ran a toddler group and led and spoke at church meetings.
In 1985 she became aware that the sight in her left eye was very gradually deteriorating, and in 1998 was diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration( AMD) – a condition in which the central vision becomes progressively blurred, meaning that reading becomes more difficult, colours are less vibrant and it is harder to recognise faces. Peripheral vision is usually unaffected, so sufferers might see the outline of something but not the fine detail.
Mary says,‘ I coped with this quite well, apart from bright sun; colours changed, especially blue and green. Gardening was awkward, but on the whole things were not too bad.’ However, Mary suffered a haemorrhage to the other eye resulting in her being registered blind in 2000, at the age of 82. This time she tells me she was‘ Devastated! I sat with my hands in my lap. I could still cook and bake and had talking baking scales, and various magnifiers. My husband read to me and we did crosswords together. Since my husband died in 2008 I do find life difficult.’
Mary is a founder member of her local Macular Society support group, campaigning and fundraising for research into treatment.
Let’ s pause here for a moment, and ask how many people do you know who have this condition? And how many members of your church do? It’ s estimated that one in every 10 people over 65 have some degree of AMD – so perhaps there are more people in your neighbourhood and church circle than you realise.
Methodist Women in Britain, Shoreline Conversations and Mike Holroyd of Gaining Vision jointly hosted a 24-hour gathering in mid- 2016 to explore issues around visual impairment and how the Christian community in its widest sense can show more sensitivity and give practical help to those with visual issues.
We asked Mary what would make most difference – her reply:‘ Just ask if I’ m OK. If I am I’ ll say so, and if I need help I’ ll be grateful.’
Sue was another attendee, along with her Methodist minister husband David. Sue’ s sight was damaged as a totally unexpected side effect of routine hip replacement surgery. She suffered blinding headaches, an extreme sensitivity to light or glare and was barely able to see or read printed text on either page or screen. The pressure in her eye was‘ sky high’ and despite treatment and numerous hospital visits over several months the pressure did not reduce or stabilise. On the day before her 58th birthday she found herself as an emergency patient undergoing surgery to insert a minute drainage tube which – happily – successfully stabilised the pressure. This condition is Primary Angle Closure Glaucoma. Sue was also diagnosed with Fuchs’ Dystrophy, which means that at some point in the future she will need a cornea transplant.
She says,‘ This life-changing experience has its problems which I face on a daily basis. My main issues are with bright lights and glare, extreme difficulty reading what the rest of the world considers‘ normal’ text, for example newspapers, magazines or food labels. I struggle with uneven ground and steps. And I have difficulty looking at heavy geometric or jungle type patterns on fabric and floor and wall coverings. Constantly flashing lights are hard too.’