An estate agent who thought she needed a new prescription was diagnosed with a brain tumour after an eye test revealed she had missed 50 per cent of colour in both eyes. Lynne Jones, 51, from Reading, Berkshire, had been struggling with blurred vision and needed her laptop's brightness turned down at work before she booked an appointment at Specsavers.
During the appointment, staff spent hours trying to find answers after she struggled to make out colours. She was sent to hospital with a letter and was later told the cause of her sight issues was a brain tumour that had wrapped around her optic nerves. Within days, she underwent a craniotomy, a procedure where a neurosurgeon removes a piece of the skull.
Sudden blurred vision prompted appointment
Lynne said she started working from home weeks prior because her office was having a re-fit, but when she returned she struggled with the lights. She asked her husband to turn the brightness down on her laptop, and when she was dropping off a parcel she could not see people in a car clearly, so she booked an appointment.
She told the Mirror: "I thought I just needed a new prescription so I went to Specsavers, did the checks and went upstairs to do the long-distance vision test. They did my right eye, and it seems all OK. Then it came to the left, and something just wasn't right. We actually spent an hour trying different things, he kept checking. It was weird, not concerning."
Colour test revealed serious issue
Lynne was then seen by a higher-up staff member who asked her to have her peripheral vision checked again. She said: "She looked at the results, I had missed 50 per cent of colour in both eyes, and I could see the concern on her face. They both had a chat, left us in the room, and came back and she said she didn't know what's going on. She said she had never seen it in both eyes."
She was given a letter to take to the hospital and went to the Royal Berkshire Hospital the next morning. After similar tests, she was referred to neurology a week later, where they thought she had MS (Multiple Sclerosis) and sent her for an MRI scan.
Devastating diagnosis and surgery
In October last year, Lynne received a call after 6pm on a Friday. She said: "As soon as I saw the time I knew it was really bad. He told me he has a duty of care to inform me I had a brain tumour. He said he wanted me to come in and see him on Monday. It was a very long weekend. I was devastated. My husband Lewis collapsed and broke down."
She was referred to the John Radcliffe Hospital and had a brain surgeon the next day. Following 11 hours of surgery to remove the tumour, she woke up with her sight restored. She praised the surgeon, saying: "He was honest with us, and said the tumour was in a very difficult spot. It was a serious surgery, because it was pressing on my optic nerves. It has wrapped itself around. The good news was I found out from the MRI scan that the tumour was benign, so it appeared we weren't dealing with cancer. But it's only after they remove it that they could confirm. I didn't think I would get my sight back, I thought it was gone."
Full-circle moment and warning to others
Nine months after that fateful day, Lynne walked back into the same Specsavers branch for an eye test. She said: "I can't thank Specsavers enough. Even a few days after they gave me the letter to take to the hospital, they called me asking if I had any news. They really cared. I think they genuinely knew something serious was wrong. I don't know what would have happened next if they didn't care as much as they did."
She added: "I honestly feel it's really important that people have eye-tests. Sometimes it's not a prescription. Sometimes it doesn't show up in headaches or fevers. Mine was actually me colour and also my left vision. What you think could just be new glasses could be something very different."
Ravi Bhardwaj, store director at the locally owned and run Specsavers Reading store, said: "We are so pleased that Lynne received the care she needed and that her sight has returned following surgery. This is a powerful reminder of why regular eye tests are so important. An eye test does not just check whether you need glasses, it can also detect signs of serious underlying health conditions. We are incredibly proud of the team for taking the time to investigate Lynne's results thoroughly and making sure she was referred urgently."
