Lisa George is battling fears of going blind after being hit with a devastating diagnosis.
The Coronation Street favourite, known for her role as Beth Sutherland which she’s held down for 12 years on the cobbles, has been diagnosed with NAION – non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy – which can lead to sudden vision loss in one eye.
It all started when Lisa was gardening and a rogue piece of rope struck her right eye, causing permanent damage to her sight at the bottom of that eye.
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Opening up to MailOnline, Lisa shared: “Corrie were great, they printed my scripts in a bigger font to make it easier but I just wasn’t getting any explanation as to what had happened. I had scans, dye put into my eyeball, but the doctors were split as to whether it was the trauma from the rope or something else that had caused the haemorrhage at the back of my eye.”
(Image: Getty Images)
But the drama didn’t stop there her left eye began playing up too. She continued: “I had a CT scan on my head, two lumber punctures, and they wouldn’t let me take my medication for my Diabetes which was making feel really poorly.” Lisa was left in the dark, with medics scratching their heads over her condition.
(Image: ITV)
She said: “No-one seemed to have a clue what had happened, they just said ‘you’ve got nerve clusters’ and after a week they sent me home and told me to take Aspirin for the pain.” Thankfully, Lisa managed to seek private care, adding: “Fortunately I was able to go private but there are so many people out there who are still not getting answers.
(Image: David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock)
Eventually I ended up at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London and was seen by a neuro ophthalmologist.” Lisa expressed her fears about never being able to work on stage again. She confessed: “I thought ‘I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to work on the stage again’ because there’s no way I’d be able to see if I had to come off the stage in the dark.”
She continued, “The panic and fear set in and I got really upset. Obviously, I’m sure they put things in place for visually impaired actors but it was a real fear and it really hit me real hard, how am I going to cope in the industry in the future?”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
