Tricia Sail of the RNIB was the guest speaker at Crediton Lions Charter dinner video by Alan Quick
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00:00 So, thank you very much for having me here, it's been an honour to be here, thank you very much to the Lions and guests.
00:07 So, my name is Tricia, I am a Community Connection Coordinator for RNIB.
00:14 Now that stands for Royal Masham Institute for the Blind, I am not a bird or a lifeboat, because I do get that mixed up.
00:21 [Laughter]
00:23 Well, I'm not a bird or a lifeboat, but I am actually registered blind.
00:26 I am one of the partnership of the winners of Race Across the World as well, Season 3.
00:33 Thank you very much.
00:35 [Laughter]
00:36 But I'm here to speak to you about Royal Masham Institute for the Blind.
00:40 So, as a Community Connection Coordinator, my job is the best job in the world.
00:48 I gave up working for a bank 18 months ago, it's the best thing I ever did.
00:55 I go around and I have dinner with people, and I tell people I'm blind.
01:01 I go and sit and talk to WI meetings and eat cake.
01:06 I go to macular groups and eat scones.
01:11 There's a theme going on here.
01:14 But what I actually do is, it's quite a fluffy job, but I go around and I talk to people about getting your eyes tested on a regular basis,
01:24 even if you don't realise you've got an eyesight problem, get them tested.
01:29 I, 12 years ago, started losing my sight to a disease called Chromioratinopathy Uveitis.
01:37 It's taken me 12 years to work out how to say that, but it's basically my immune system attacking my eyes, saying they don't belong to me anymore.
01:45 I had 20/20 vision, not a problem, didn't get my eyes tested.
01:50 My eye went pop.
01:53 And then I left it for a week, because that's what you do.
01:57 It became inoperable, and that was it.
02:02 I was blind in my right eye.
02:05 So I did go back to the optician, or went to the optician, who, you know when you go to the mechanics for the eyes, they go, "Ooooh," and you know it's going to cost you a fortune.
02:17 They did that with my eyesight.
02:19 I was like, "Oh my God, I'm dying." I wasn't.
02:22 So they ended up sending me to hospital after hospital after hospital.
02:26 They did say to me if I'd got my eyes tested previously to this, then potentially they could have done something about it.
02:33 So it was a bit of a kick in the teeth, to be fair.
02:37 So I now get my eyes tested on a regular basis, which is great, but they still can't do anything about it.
02:44 I then, six months later, lost my sight in my left eye.
02:48 I do have some sight, but if I look at you all now, I can just see colours.
02:52 That's all I can see.
02:54 So when somebody smiles at me, I have no idea.
02:58 So I'm trying to hear people.
03:01 But it hasn't stopped me doing anything.
03:05 Well, it has. It's stopped me driving.
03:08 But I can always have a glass of wine, because I can never be the nominator.
03:11 Drive, love, get.
03:14 It's always a silver lining.
03:16 And that's one of the reasons that I did Race Across the World, because I wanted to prove to people that if you have no sight, that it's absolutely fine, because you can still do things.
03:26 And to the sighted community, that actually don't write people off that have got sight impairment, because actually we can do everything that you can do.
03:35 It might take us a bit longer, and we will do it better.
03:39 But I will anyway. I'll try.
03:43 But don't write us off.
03:45 So within Community Connections, I do go around and I talk to people about sight impairment, and how to look after your eyes, and what RNIB does.
03:54 So RNIB has got a lot of different fingers in lots of different pies.
04:01 So we deal with technology.
04:04 We deal with advice on benefits.
04:10 We help with sighted guiding.
04:15 We go around, we've got a big thing at the moment, that we go around the libraries, and helping the libraries work out how to use their technology that they've got there.
04:24 Because a lot of the librarians haven't got a clue how to use their accessibility libraries.
04:28 So we are doing a lot of work with them.
04:31 So we also deal with going to your home to see if you need any adjustments in your home, or writing, things like that.
04:42 And I also deal with groups.
04:46 So I'll go out into the community, and if somebody is really enjoying knitting, I will get a group of people, like mine did, put you all in a group, and you can all talk about knitting.
04:59 And then you become a community of knitters.
05:02 And it's to stop isolation.
05:05 Because I know that when I first started losing my sight, I was very isolated.
05:10 I was the only person in the world, according to me, that had sight loss.
05:15 I didn't know anybody that had sight impairment.
05:18 I didn't know where to get help from.
05:21 I didn't know what to do.
05:23 I was afraid of my own shadow.
05:26 I wouldn't open the front door, just in case somebody stabbed me.
05:29 I don't know why they would, but you know.
05:31 I wouldn't answer the phone, just in case somebody asked me to write something down.
05:35 I can still write things down, I just can't read them.
05:38 So I wouldn't do anything.
05:40 I literally sat in my house doing nothing.
05:43 To the extent that I was making cups of tea, and I was making a cup of tea with my finger inside the cup, so that I could find out how hot, where the water was, in relation to the cup.
05:55 I've now learnt, after burning my fingers so many times, that there's a liquid level indicator that you put on the side of your cup, and it goes "beep beep beep beep" when it's too full.
06:06 Love it!
06:07 Yeah, saves me fingers.
06:10 So, that's what I do, basically.
06:14 I go around and I make groups of people, help people become independent.
06:19 I also want to let people know that it's okay not to be okay.
06:24 If you've got a sight impairment, or you've got macular degeneration, or you've got diabetic retinopathy, or you've got glaucoma, or cataract, it's fine.
06:35 And it's fine to ask for help.
06:37 I didn't ask for help for about four years, and I got myself into a bit of a stupor, to say the least.
06:45 I was going to divorce my husband, I was going to live on the streets, because that's what happens.
06:51 I don't really know.
06:52 I was catastrophised.
06:54 And then I asked for help.
06:56 A little man, not a little man, sorry, a man, but he is actually quite little, knocked on my door and said "Hello, I'm from RNIB!"
07:04 And I went "Ah, what do you want?"
07:07 And he said "Come to this course called Living Well with Sight Loss."
07:12 The first day I walked in there, it took him about a month to get me to go to this course.
07:18 And I walked in the door and I was crying my eyes out, I was shaking like the leaf.
07:23 And I walked in, and as I walked in, somebody ran out and went "I can't do this!"
07:27 He grabbed hold of me and went "Stay!"
07:30 All I can say is thank God he did.
07:32 What I didn't know is the other woman, she had a paranoia about wood, and so she had to run because it was a wooden room.
07:40 Anyway, I sat there for four hours crying my eyes out.
07:45 Didn't have a clue what this guy had said to me for four hours, to this day I haven't got a clue.
07:51 But all I knew is I was in a room full of people that had a sight impairment and I wasn't alone.
07:57 And there was help.
07:59 And that's what I want to do, is let people know that it's okay not to be okay, and that there's help out there.
08:08 And all you need to do is pick up the phone, and we will be on the phone, we'll be on the end.
08:13 Whatever it is, even if you've got cataracts, astigmatism, don't phone us if you've got a broken toe, because that's not us.
08:22 Or if a bird's got a bad wing, because again, that's not us.
08:26 But yeah, we're on the phone, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, there will be somebody there that can answer the phone.
08:35 And we will be there to help.
08:37 Because I know how isolating it can be.
08:40 And I just want to make sure that people that were in my position 12 years ago, come to my position now, and can stand up and say, "I'm okay."
08:52 So yeah, give us a call.
08:57 [Applause]