Waiting for an NHS appointment could have had a devastating impact on my life

When her sight started to blur in one eye, Marianne Jones wasn’t too worried – but what happened next was terrifying and exposes the broken state of an NHS system failing millions of patients every day

Marianne Jones had always been short-sighted but, when her eyesight began to fail, she was facing a terrifying choice – pay now or pay with her sight later (Marianne Jones)

It was three days before my silver wedding anniversary holiday that I booked an optician’s appointment to check out my suddenly blurry right eye.

For days previously, all I could see were wavy lines, distorted faces and floating blobs. I’ve been extremely short-sighted since I was a teenager (my nickname is Mr Magoo) and have check-ups more regularly than most. So, I was concerned but not overly so, putting my eye problems down to the strain of staring at the computer for too long. Still, I wanted to put my mind at rest before heading off for a 12-hour flight to Mauritius, for a celebration we’d saved long and hard for.

I hadn’t planned for the potential dire consequences of my symptoms, or the very British drama that came next. One hour later, on a Friday afternoon, the optician studied a scan of my problematic eye and declared I needed emergency treatment for what appeared to be fluid leaking into my retina.