When Graham was 16, he and his friends decided to join the Navy. However, after passing the exams, he was called back in and told that he couldn’t join up because his eyesight was so impaired without his glasses.
Unbeknownst to him, he had a condition called keratoconus which affects your cornea (the clear dome-shaped window at the front of your eye which focusses light on to your retina). With keratoconus, the cornea bulges outwards in an irregular cone shape, making vision blurry and distorted.
Within 18 months, Graham had been referred to Bristol Eye Hospital and put on a waiting list for a corneal transplant. The techniques used at the time meant that corneas could be stored only for a very limited time, and so you could not plan when your corneal transplant surgery would take place.
On the morning of 23 April 1978, Graham received a call at work from Bristol Eye Hospital that they had a cornea for him, and he would need to come in and have the transplant immediately. Graham had the transplant that day as an emergency surgery. He then had to stay in hospital for two weeks and be off work for two months.
Graham also had to wear a scleral lens to help correct his vision. Scleral lenses are large rigid gas permeable contact lenses specially designed to vault over the irregularly shaped cornea and rest on the sclera (the white part of the eye). For this, he had to travel to Oxford every few months.
Fortunately, Graham’s wife, Annie, loves Oxford and her favourite Thai restaurant is there, so she would usually try and organise an afternoon appointment so they would have to stay the night and go out for dinner!
By utter coincidence, Annie was the Admissions Manager at Bristol Eye Hospital from 1984 to 1997 (she and Graham didn’t meet at the hospital, but what a story that would have been!). But she saw the difference the Corneal Transplant Service (CTS) at Bristol Eye Bank made first-hand over these decades.
During the late 1980s, thanks to research funded by Sight Research UK, researchers had developed the necessary tissue conservation techniques to allow corneal tissue to be stored for up to 28 days. As a result, the UK’s very first CTS was created at the exact place Annie worked – Bristol Eye Bank. This advancement transformed the logistics of corneal transplants all across the UK, allowing operations to be planned weeks in advance rather than as emergency surgeries. Annie says,
“It was better for the surgeons, better for the patients, better for the hospital, and better, from my point of view, for planning the beds…Eye banks have revolutionised transplant surgery.”
So by 1997, when Graham needed a second partial corneal transplant, this experience was very different to his first. Thanks to this advancement, he was able to plan around this surgery making sure he was prepared and that he could book time off afterwards to recover.
In 2019, Graham was diagnosed with a cataract, and his cornea- which had been replaced in 1978- needed replacing again.
Graham’s third transplant operation took place on Valentine’s Day 2019, which Annie thinks was a ‘bit excessive’ to get out of going out for dinner and having to buy flowers! This time he was able to plan four months in advance, only had to stay in hospital overnight, and could return to work after two weeks.
Once the transplant had healed, he was able to have his cataract removed. This procedure was booked for October 2020, and Graham had to have a COVID-19 test 2 weeks before and then isolate. Unfortunately, the COVID test happened to be on Annie’s birthday and her birthday meal at a Thai restaurant in Keynsham had to be cancelled!
Thanks to the corneal transplants, cataract surgery and scleral lenses, Graham’s vision has been preserved and he has been able to continue driving, playing squash, football, cricket and golf. He and Annie have travelled the world, climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge, walking on the Great Wall of China and driving Route 66 from Chicago to LA.
Annie (Left) and Graham (Right)
“The transplants have enabled Graham and me to do all these amazing things together, which would not have been possible without transplants. We have never been held back,”
says Annie. They also allowed Graham to continue working as a Paediatric Nursing Assistant at Bristol Children’s Hospital, a job which he loved, and for which he won a ‘Best Nursing Assistant of the Year’ award from across the whole of the University Hospitals Bristol Foundation Trust.
Graham and Annie’s story has meant that are both very grateful for research which allowed the transformation of corneal transplant surgery over the last 40 years. They will also always be grateful to all the organ donors and their families who have made an incredibly brave choice at a very difficult time.
Graham is now retired, and he and Annie can catch up on all their missed Thai meals!
