Scott Bailey can still vividly remember the day he lost his sight. “It happened in an instant,” says the 35-year-old from Crewe. Yet the morning of February 28, 2019 had started as any other, with Scott busy at work as a dairy farmer. “I turned around towards the light outside the milking parlour when all of a sudden I could see these big black drops of blood covering part of my left eye. It felt like I was looking at the gloopy wax falling inside a lava lamp – but it was happening in my eye.
“I remember shaking my head hoping it would clear, but instead that only dispersed the blood even more. It wasn’t painful but very scary.”
Despite this terrifying experience, Scott somehow finished his day’s work – but unable to drive safely, he was taken by his wife Amanda to his local hospital. There he was diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy, a complication of Type 1 diabetes, a chronic disease he had lived with since he was 10.
According to Diabetes UK, more than 400,000 Brits are living with Type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease where the pancreas no longer makes enough insulin to control blood glucose levels. It requires daily insulin injections and close monitoring.
Scott’s annual diabetic eye screenings had spotted early signs of retinopathy two years previously. High blood glucose levels damage the tiny blood vessels which supply the retina, the light-sensitive cells at the back of the eyeball. Scott says: “I had been given laser surgery to cauterise the damaged blood vessels and injections to reduce damage and protect the retina, all while carefully managing my blood sugars to try and stop the condition progressing.
“But by October 2018 I was told I needed emergency surgery within four weeks. Unfortunately I waited months, but it seems the hospital department were just too busy to fit it in and so, in February, I had the bleed which left me blind,” says Scott. “I do feel some anger and upset – it might not have ended like this if I’d had the surgery earlier.
“On the day it happened, I remember being in hospital feeling totally lost,” adds Scott, who ended up requiring 15 complicated vitrectomy operations between March 2019 and August 2023. The procedure removes some of the clear jelly inside the eye and replaces it with oil.
“Each time, it seemed to go well, but a week later I would suffer another bleed and surgeons would have to repeat the process,” says Scott. “It got to the point where, after surgery, I would be scared to sleep or close my eyes because when I opened them, I knew it hadn’t worked again.”
Scott is now officially registered blind, having been left with no vision in his left eye and only able to see blurry shapes a few feet ahead in the right, which he describes as like “looking through a thick fog”.
“During those first nine months, once Amanda had gone to work and my daughters Grace, 18, and Darcey, 11 were at school, I just sat in the kitchen,” says Scott, who had to give up his job on the farm.
“I was scared to stand up or move around in case anything happened. Before losing my sight, I’d been very active out in the fields every day. Now I wasn’t only stuck inside four walls, but inside my own head.”
To regain some independence, Scott started using a white cane but hated it, saying it “made me feel disabled”.
“I don’t mind saying that at times I felt suicidal because of how my life had changed. At my lowest moments my wife supported me and my uncle did too. I tried some counselling, which didn’t really help at the time but I really gave it a try.”
Hope finally returned after Scott enquired about getting a guide dog. “I didn’t think I was blind enough to qualify but I remember showing them my walking using my cane and I walked into a lamppost,” he recalls of his sight assessment by the charity Guide Dogs.
In September 2020, Scott was teamed up with two-year-old golden retriever Milo. The pair instantly bonded. “I can remember going for our first walk and it felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I didn’t feel disabled after that, just someone walking their dog.”
Milo gave Scott a fresh impetus. After completing a computer course, he continued studying and completed a master’s degree at Keele University in counselling and psychotherapy, a field he now works in.
And keen to find a new passion, in 2021 Scott joined his local judo club which welcomed him as their only blind member. “When I went to judo, Milo would sit on the edge of my mat, and as soon as I stepped onto the mat my disability disappeared,” says Scott who excelled at his new passion against both sighted and blind opponents. “I’ve competed all over Europe and won a gold medal at a European Judo Union (EJU) tournament in Croatia in June 2024,” says Scott.
“I feel it’s only the start of my judo journey. I want to make it to the 2028 Paralympics in Los Angeles.
“Before I was blind, I wasn’t someone who would ask for help. But I’ve learned you should never be afraid to ask – you never know where it will lead.”
■ To find out more about Guide Dogs, a charity which helps two million people living with sight loss through its services, visit guidedogs.org.uk