In this powerful and personal blog, Jo shares her eye-opening journey through an unexpected health crisis. From living with Retinitis Pigmentosa to facing Acute Closed Angle Glaucoma, Jo takes us through the twists and turns of her eye health challenges.

But this isn't just a story about medical hurdles. It's a testament to the life-changing impact of working for a company that truly puts its people first. Jo shares how BMT's flexible policies, comprehensive health benefits, and support made all the difference during her toughest times.

In 2007, when I was in my early 30’s, I was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP). This is an inherited eye condition which causes a loss of visual fields and night blindness. Although RP is a degenerative condition, the rate of progress varies from person to person, and many people keep a level of vision well into middle age. 

Chris McCausland, for instance, who is currently starring on Strictly, has RP and has lost most of his sight. For me, RP so far has had some effect on my life, but it has not stopped me from doing anything. 

Having always lived with it, I didn’t know any different – I could just see things as well (or as bad) as I had always seen them. There is so much to discuss about RP and while I could write a whole blog post about it, I would like to share instead my journey from this year. 

After living with RP for so long, things took a turn around September 2023. I started to get dizzy spells which my GP put down to the perimenopause. At the same time, I noticed a change in my vision – it felt like my glasses were dirty all the time. I had my eyes checked at the optician (just a regular eye test) and all was good.

On March 12th this year, I had my yearly check up for the RP at Moorfields. As I was still experiencing dizzy spells, I was expecting bad news. At Moorfields, they put drops in your eyes to dilate the pupils, allowing the doctor to see better. I have had this done every year since being diagnosed in 2007. Contrary to all my fears, the specialist told me that the RP was stable, and I was out of my appointment, following the green lines to Old Street station in an hour. 

However, on the train home, I started to get a severe headache behind my right eye. By the time I got off the train, it was like someone had put a white cloud over my eye. At this stage, I wasn’t too concerned and thought it was just the drops working their way out. Nonetheless, as the day progressed, the pain got worse. That evening, I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to sleep because of the pain and decided to head to A&E. 

I was seen quickly at A&E, and they then spoke to the on-call eye consultant. After discussing everything, it was agreed that I would head over to another hospital which had an eye clinic. At midnight that night, I found myself in a taxi heading to a hospital that was closed for the night! 

There was no one else in the hospital except for me, the eye consultant and her dad! She had been nervous about being there on her own with a patient, and her dad had offered to join her. She did a couple of tests on my eye and then advised me that she was very glad I had gone to the hospital that night. The pressure in the right eye was 70  (10 times higher than the normal pressure of 7) and I had Acute Closed Angle Glaucoma (ACAG). This had been caused by the drops enlarging my pupil. I have since discovered that as I had a very high prescription, it was always a possibility this could happen to me. 

I spent the next five hours having various drops put into my eye and when the pressure had dropped to 40, I was allowed to go home for a few hours. I had to go back to hospital every other day for the next week so the consultants could attempt to laser a hole in my eye to relieve the pressure. Unfortunately, as the pupil seemed to have blown because of the ACAG, they couldn’t do this successfully and decided to give up the following week when my eye started bleeding! 

It was then decided that I would need cataract surgery, initially on my right eye followed by the left eye three months later. Ideally, the right eye needed to be done within four weeks. Unfortunately, my appointment for mid-April was cancelled until the end of May. Fortunately for me, my employer, BMT, offers a fantastic Private Medical benefit which I took advantage of which on reflection, was absolutely the right decision for me in the long run.

On 29th April, my right eye was operated on. Due to my high prescription, I learned that I have medically small eyes,  so the surgery was more complicated than a standard cataract surgery. However, it all went well, and I was home that afternoon. 

Following a week of rest, I was back at work. I work in a small team of two. My colleague Martina and I work well together, and I never felt pressured either by her or BMT to come back sooner than I needed to.

In addition to the PMI scheme, BMT offers us flexible working – both in terms of hours we work and where we work from. There is no requirement to come into the office on a set number of days each week - although Martina and I do normally like to meet up at least 2-3 times a month. This flexibility meant I could return to work quicker than if I had been office based. It was important to me to return to work quickly so that I had a feeling of normality due to everything happening so suddenly. 

Following the surgery, I now had a very different prescription in each eye which couldn’t really be fixed. I was told to take the lens out of my glasses on the right side – very Jack Duckworth! However, as I was making using of BMT’s PMI scheme, I benefitted from being able to bring the surgery for my left eye forward, and I had that, just three weeks later, on 20th May.

As with the previous surgery, I went back to work a week later, thinking that this part of my life was now sorted. Unfortunately, there have been many complications since then. 

Due to the RP, one of the risks of having cataract surgery is that a patient may get Macular Oedema following it. Two weeks after my surgery, I was at a career’s fair in Bristol (about 4 hours on the train from home). I spent the day asking my colleagues if the room was too bright for them, which of course it wasn’t. On the train home, the words on my kindle seemed slightly distorted. 

The Macular Oedema was confirmed the next day, and I was signed off work for 2 weeks. It is difficult to work when there is fluid pushing against your eyes, distorting your vision so much that you cannot see the words on the screen in front of you.

Around this time, things started to get me down. I am very much a practical person and throughout everything that happened, I felt that I would do as told,  have the surgery and everything would go back to normal. However, this wasn’t happening. Again, I turned to another benefit offered by BMT its employees. We have access to a great Employee Assistance Programme, and I reached out to them and arranged to speak to someone through their counselling service. 

The drops I was given for the Macular Oedema did make it go away and I returned to work at the end of June. Unfortunately, as I came off the drops it came back again - much worse this time – and I was unable to work for another two weeks. 

I’ve been back at work since August, and I’m now slowly coming off the drops. My right pupil never went back to its normal size so I am currently waiting for a specialist contact lens that will give the impression that it is normal. This will also mean less light gets into the eye, which will help with the headaches I’m currently suffering from around this eye. My eyes also get blurry frequently, but this could be down to the drops I am taking. However, I ensure I take lots of breaks from the screen and get out for a walk every day. 

After all that has happened, my eyes will never be as they were two years ago. There has been a lot of damage to the right eye. I do feel lucky this happened to my right eye as it has always been the weaker eye. Had this happened to my left eye, things would have been much worse for me. 

It has been difficult being signed off work – I really enjoy working for BMT and my role and take great pride in giving the best service to my internal stakeholders and candidates. But I’m grateful for the support I received from Martina, our line manager and the wider People team. 

There is a possibility that as I reduce the drops, the Macular Oedema could come back for a third time. It goes without saying that I have everything crossed that this is not the case, but I know that I have a fantastic support system at work that will allow me to get back to full health.