I started wearing glasses because of shortsightedness when at school studying for my A-levels. I managed with glasses quite well, but was then diagnosed with keratoconus in 1995, and since then have been wearing hard contact lenses.

I took to wearing lenses like a duck to water, but after about 5 years the coning in my corneas started to really steepen, with my left eye being particularly bad. It wasn’t long before I was wearing keratoconus lenses, and because my left cornea was so steep, my left contact lens was continually popping out. As you can imagine, this was rather frustrating, and resulted in a number of lenses being lost.

By 2007 my left cornea had become so thin (and I was so shortsighted) that I was put on the waiting list for a new cornea in August. Once tissue became available everything happened very quickly – I got the call putting me on standby on Friday 2nd November, and had the operation on the Monday.

The operation was really quick, and I was so well looked after by everyone at the Centre for Sight/McIndoe surgical ward.

It was a strange sensation when the bandage was taken off after the op the next morning, as my eye just couldn’t stop watering and my vision was extremely blurred. But I knew already that, only 12hrs after the op, my eyesight had already improved compared to what I had previously.