Brenda Holloway

"It's been a miracle"

Tears of joy as New Zealand invention saves Brenda from going blind… now she's watching her favourite soaps instead of listening to them!

Fifty one year old Brenda Holloway of South Wales was resigned to going blind. 

In fact since the age of 11 she's been on the partially blind register.  Her left eye has practically no vision, and her worsening right eye allows her to see only blurred images. 

She's been listening rather than watching her favourite "soaps" on television at her home in the town of Caldicot in South Wales.

Confined to a wheelchair because of crippling and painful arthritis, shopping was a major ordeal and left her husband, 61 year old David John, a retired fabricator.

In a last ditch effort to retain restricted vision in her right eye, doctors urged her to have an operation which would, at best, give her another two years before she went blind.

However, an hour before she was scheduled for the operating theatre, Brenda developed dangerously high blood pressure and doctors were forced to cancel the operation.

It was a bitter blow.

But just 18 months later Brenda is on cloud nine… because she can now see out of her right eye.

"It's been a miracle", says Brenda who had come to accept her destiny of life in darkness.

She can read, do tapestry, and go shopping because she can now read the labels in the supermarket, and see prices.

Best of all, she can now watch the "soaps" on television.

What has changed her life so dramatically has been a tiny piece of plastic in the form of a lens known as the Rose K lens for keratoconus.

When the lens was fitted by her optician, J.B.D. Creighton Lewis, of Church Village, Pontypridd, she wept tears of joy at being able to see so clearly.

She was able to read the lines on the eye test wall chart, something she had not been able to do since she was 11.

With the new lens which she wears for 10 hours a day, Brenda is enjoying clearly seeing for the first time her three children Amanda Jane, Carol and Mark and especially her grand-daughter Nicola.

"I'm so grateful to Mr Rose for his invention.  My life is much easier.  I can see more and do much more," she says.

"I hope, however, I don't go blind from watching too much television."