Joan, 65, registered blind
Joan fell nine times in the first two years after her sight loss. She has had mobility training which she says is extremely helpful, but she is still anxious when she is out and about and finds it extremely tiring to be anywhere she is not familiar with.
"You try and carry on as much as you possibly can, doing what you've always done...except I can't...I've found if I try to do things in a hurry without thinking about what I am doing...you start knocking things over, you just have to do something slightly differently and you swing your hand around and over everything goes"
"...you have two choices, either you accept it [losing our sight] or you become [angry] and no one wants to know you and I'd far rather have people know me, otherwise life becomes very isolating and it's isolating enough when you can't see"
"I don't know what we would do if the council couldn't afford to give [my local society] anything...what would happen to people newly registered, I don't know. I don't see how the local council could provide a person, you'd have to have someone in every area...but if you closed down that facility altogether, would we back to square one and there'd be nobody to help us? That doesn't bear thinking about."
Read the full story in our Quick wins and missed opportunities report