{"id":14626,"date":"2019-01-14T14:01:48","date_gmt":"2019-01-14T14:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alliance-scotland.org.uk\/?page_id=13253"},"modified":"2023-08-15T12:15:34","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T11:15:34","slug":"lawsons-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alliance-scotland.org.uk\/humansofscotland\/lawsons-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawson’s Story \u2013 living with sight loss"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cMy story started when I was born, my eye condition is hereditary and my father had it. It was diagnosed in 1968 when I was a teenager but on my medical records, the consultant wrote that he wasn\u2019t going to tell my parents because it was \u2018unlikely that it would affect my daily life\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward to 1996 when I went back to work after having 15 years off to bring up my children, I knew I couldn\u2019t see as well as I should be able to. I went to my GP and he sent me to the eye consultant. He had a look in my eyes and said \u2018do you know you\u2019ve got something wrong with your eyes?\u2019. I cried all the way home, cos he said to me \u2018you may eventually go blind\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was very, very hard. You do tend to pretend it\u2019s not happening. I got a white cane quite quickly. I put it in a cupboard and didn\u2019t use it. Then it got the stage I had no choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2003 my sight was too bad to continue with the job I was doing. Eventually my employer started discussing medical retirement with me. It was quite frustrating \u2013 that my income would be disappearing, part of your own being, there was an element of \u2018I\u2019m not really worthy anymore\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had some very dark days, I lost confidence, you think \u2018what am I going to do in the future, how am I going to cope?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the three years after I finished work, I never went out on my own because I was too frightened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember the first day I went out using my cane. I probably deliberated for about an hour. I set off and I got myself to the shop. I took my phone out of my pocket and I wrote a text to my husband and my two daughters \u201cMum at shop\u201d. That was a turning point, it was huge. Since the Forth Valley Sensory Centre opened, I\u2019ve never looked back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel pretty positive, I\u2019ve got a lot of my confidence back. I\u2019m quite an outgoing person. My visual impairment doesn\u2019t hold me back anymore. I can do most things anyone else can do, I just have to do it differently.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can listen to the audio version of this story on the Anchor FM website (this link will take you away from our website)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMy story started when I was born, my eye condition is hereditary and my father had it. It was diagnosed in 1968 when I was a teenager but on my medical records, the consultant wrote that he wasn\u2019t going to tell my parents because it was \u2018unlikely that it would affect my daily life\u2019. Fast … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"hos-category":[738],"humans_tags":[488,490],"area_of_work":[],"strategic_priority":[],"class_list":["post-14626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","hos-category-disability","humans_tags-sensory","humans_tags-sensory-loss"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLawson's Story \u2013 living with sight loss - Humans of Scotland<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.alliance-scotland.org.uk\/humansofscotland\/lawsons-story\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lawson's Story \u2013 living with sight loss - Humans of Scotland\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cMy story started when I was born, my eye condition is hereditary and my father had it. 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