"My glaucoma should have been diagnosed earlier"

Ten years ago I was in a road accident. I got a blow to the head and a black eye. A few months after the accident I noted there was something wrong with my right eye. I went to my GP he said "It would settle down in time".

Last year I was getting pains in my eye and it felt I was looking through a film. Again I went back to my GP. I got: "Well you had a car accident, what do you expect?"

Then three weeks ago I went for a routine eye test. The optician spotted there was a film over my eye and she was going to do a glaucoma test but she ran out of time and would not do it. I was referred to my GP again. He admitted he was not an eye expert and thought I had a catract and pushed through an urgent appointment for me.

It was the new Choose and Book service - a wonderful idea in theory but I couldn't get the hospital I wanted and I couldn't get an appointment until the middle of April. This has been three weeks and I was told that it was not serious. I rang my GP up again and told him the situation and finally he suggested that if I was that worried I should go to LRI Eye casualty.

So my mother and I did (and got colds on top of everything else). To give credit where credits due, the LRI were very kind to me and the doctors were very professional.They couldn't understand why I was treated in such a way. I was diagonised with acute glaucoma and I have lost two-thirds of my vision. All because it took ten years to take me seriously.

The stupidity continues: I can't get my prescription made out because the LRI (make sure it's on white paper) won't accept the green repeat, and the GP won't accept hospital prescriptions.