People Behind the Diagnosis

Mike Amor and Estelle Powell have never met, yet their stories share a common thread that should give every eye care practitioner pause for thought. Both experienced critical moments where the system – and the people within it – either saved or compromised their vision.

For Mike, a routine optometry appointment in his early 20s became an unexpected gateway to early glaucoma detection, likely preserving his sight despite years of poorly controlled disease while working as a foreign correspondent. For Estelle, a receptionist’s dismissive response to her concerning symptoms cost her 18 months of potential treatment – a delay that may have contributed to the significant vision loss she now experiences.

Both patients ultimately found their way to expert care and support. Yet their stories remind us that technical excellence alone isn’t enough. The words we choose, the systems we create, and the humanity we bring to each consultation can profoundly shape not just clinical outcomes, but the lived experience of those in our care.

When Mike Amor walked into an optometry practice in country Victoria in his early 20s, he expected to walk out with a pair of glasses. Instead, he became the centre of attention as the optometrist invited everyone in the clinic to examine his eyes. The diagnosis was Krukenberg spindle – a spindle-shaped pigment deposition on the cornea of patients with pigment dispersion syndrome – something the practitioner had never seen outside of textbooks.

“I didn’t know what the hell was going on,” recalled Mike, now a well-known 7News Melbourne presenter and former foreign correspondent. “I’d gone in to get some glasses and came out with Krukenberg spindle, which I still struggle to say.”

That diagnosis marked the beginning of a continued relationship with glaucoma that would eventually threaten his career, test his resilience, and ultimately determine the direction of his life in unexpected ways.

THE SILENT PROGRESSION

For Mike, the early years as a glaucoma patient were deceptively manageable. Regular monitoring kept his intraocular pressure (IOP) under control, and laser treatment in his 30s seemed to stabilise the condition. But the demanding lifestyle of a foreign correspondent – based in the United States, travelling 70% of the time, working 12-hour days, crossing time zones, and occasionally having to cancel ophthalmologist appointments to cover earthquakes or mass murders – likely accelerated the disease’s progression.

“I tried to take care of it, but when you had an ophthalmologist appointment and a massacre, you’d have to dump the appointment,” he explained matter-of-factly. “I’m certainly much more stringent now. Nothing will get in the way of my doctor’s visit.”

By his late 40s, Mike’s carefully managed IOP collapsed. Despite being on four different drops daily plus oral medication – including acetazolamide, typically given to mountain climbers for altitude sickness – his IOP rocketed into the high 50s. The side effects were, in Mike’s words, “horrible”.

REACHING CRISIS POINT

The crisis point came in early 2018 when Mike returned from the US to Melbourne to trial as a newsreader. Unknown to him, he’d developed an allergic reaction to one of his drops. His eyes turned bright red and began weeping constantly.

“I always say I looked like a cast member of The Walking Dead,” he laughed, though the painful memory still sits with him. “My eyes were bright, bright red, they were weeping. I’d have to wipe the tears away in between takes and could barely see the autocue.”

The public response was ruthless. Online memes suggested he was smoking cannabis or presenting while high. It was a devastating period, made worse by an American ophthalmologist who initially misdiagnosed the problem as a simple infection.

His wife, horrified by what she witnessed, returned to America ahead of him and began frantically searching for expert help. In the fragmented American healthcare system, securing an urgent specialist appointment typically requires waiting four to five months. Through persistence, she found an expert who could see Mike immediately upon his return. And it was just as well.

A SYSTEM UNDER STRAIN

When the American specialist measured Mike’s IOP at 58 in both eyes, he was mortified. The doctor warned that his eyes could “stroke out at any stage” and he could lose his vision entirely. Surgery was scheduled within days, with another patient’s booking cancelled to accommodate the emergency.

The experience demonstrated the significant contrast between healthcare systems in America and Australia. Without insurance, each of Mike’s many surgeries would have cost around US$50,000 and “daily follow-ups that required waiting, sometimes four, five, or six hours in the clinic” alongside patients in worse conditions, to see his time-poor surgeon.

“Whatever time we had face-to-face was very limited. He was rushed and doing his best, no doubt,” Mike reflected. “But we had to navigate our own way through it, and it was scary. Very, very bloody scary.”

His primary support came from his wife, who drove him more than an hour each way to appointments daily while essentially raising their son alone. “I couldn’t have done it without her,” he said simply.

THE COMMUNICATION GAP

For Mike, one of the most challenging aspects was getting his head around the medical terminology used by specialists during consultations.

“They spoke in ways that people like me don’t necessarily understand, and to be frank, it frightened the hell out of me.

“Things like trabeculectomy – I mean, that’s a mouthful, but that was scary, and I had no idea what he was talking about. I thought, ‘What’s that? Cut my head off ?’”

His message to practitioners is direct: “You’re not speaking to another surgeon or optometrist. You’re talking to somebody who’s probably quite scared. It’s easy to overlook that these people are scared. They don’t really understand what’s going on.”

THE EMOTIONAL TOLL

Mike believes that what many practitioners may not fully appreciate is the psychological burden that accompanies the physical treatment. “You’ve got the physical, and you’ve got the mental, and the mental part can be just as damaging,” he observed.

Yet for him, the experience has also come with a few positives. Unable to work, Mike was forced to slow down. He attended his son’s soccer practice and did the school pick-up – “normal” activities he’d been missing while travelling constantly.

“I realised what I was missing out on, and that made the decision to come home (from America) and leave a job that I really loved much easier, because I’d smelled the roses.”

FINDING SUPPORT THROUGH GLAUCOMA AUSTRALIA

After returning to Melbourne for treatment with ophthalmologist Associate Professor Michael Coote, Mike discovered something else he’d been missing: comprehensive patient support. Glaucoma Australia’s role in bridging the gap between clinical care and patient understanding resonated deeply with him.

“Ophthalmologists and optometrists are busy here, just as they are in the United States. I guess they can't be pandering to people’s feelings too much, so it’s good to have a service that sits outside of that (medical environment).

“I love the support that they give the doctors and particularly, the patients; they kind of break down everything to do with glaucoma in layman’s terms,” he said. “There’s somebody on the phone who can say, ‘the feelings you have are normal’.”

LOOKING FORWARD

Today, Mike’s condition is stable. Alongside interventional glaucoma surgeries, he has had two cataract operations, and continues using eye drops twice daily. He now sees his ophthalmologist every six months – “a landmark” compared to the three-month intervals previously required, and he feels comfortable at the prospect of any further surgeries needed to maintain his vision because, “if you’ve had a needle in your eye a few times, you can do anything”.

Perhaps most remarkably, he considers himself fortunate. Despite having no family history of glaucoma and experiencing no symptoms, even when his pressure reached dangerous levels, his early diagnosis likely saved his sight.

“I can imagine glaucoma happening to people out there, and they may not be aware of it,” he said. “Had I not been under care (for Krukenberg spindle), my glaucoma would probably have progressed without me realising until it was too late.”

Mike said it’s this realisation that motivated him to become an ambassador for Glaucoma Australia in March 2024. “I’m always happy to tell my story if it helps other people,” he explained. “By speaking out, I can reassure people that there is hope. I’ve been through it, and hopefully others can come through it as well.”

Mike Amor is an ambassador for Glaucoma Australia, which provides support, information, and resources for people affected by glaucoma and the practitioners who care for them. For more information, visit glaucoma.org.au.

When Estelle Powell first noticed a grey spot obscuring part of her computer screen at work, she did what many patients do – she sought professional help. What happened next demonstrates how a single point of contact can alter a patient’s trajectory – and why robust triage protocols are non-negotiable.

Estelle’s journey, since that day over 20 years ago, also demonstrates how a patient’s attitude can ultimately make all the difference to their quality of life.

A DELAYED DIAGNOSIS

It was the early 2000s, and Estelle, then in her early 50s and working as an accountant in Auckland, had recently switched to a new optometrist. After a frustrating experience with incorrectly made spectacles, she returned to the practice with a concerning symptom: a central blind spot in her right eye.

“When I put my hand over my left eye and looked with my right eye, I noticed a bit of my screen was missing in the middle,” Estelle recalled. “It was sort of grey, and I thought, ‘well, that’s a little bit weird’.”

She rang the practice immediately, but the receptionist’s response would haunt her for the next 18 months. “She said to me, ‘Can you see when you’ve got both eyes open?’ I said yes. She said, ‘Oh well, don’t worry about it then’.”

The dismissal stung. “She made me feel like I was silly, made me feel really bad,” Estelle said. “It just put me off contacting anybody else.”

By the time she told her youngest daughter, the blind spot had grown. Aided by a quick Google search suggesting glaucoma, her daughter insisted she seek care.

A different optometrist immediately suspected glaucoma and referred her to specialist Professor Helen Danesh-Meyer in Remuera, (who in 2026 was appointed as Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit). The diagnosis was confirmed: glaucoma in both eyes. But that receptionist’s dismissal had cost Estelle 18 months of potential treatment – a delay that may have contributed to her current vision loss.

THE CLINICAL REALITY

Now 68, the vision in Estelle’s right eye is significantly impaired. “I can’t actually see very much with my right eye now. I can’t read with it,” she explained. However, her left eye remains functional enough that she can still drive during the day – a privilege she doesn’t take for granted.

Over the years, private health insurance has enabled her to undergo multiple treatments and surgical interventions. “Helen’s worked really hard to keep the vision in my left eye. It’s been quite an ordeal for her; I had about 11 procedures (laser, trabeculectomies and bleb needling) over two years at one stage,” she said.

At the time of interviewing, Estelle was eye drop free; something for which she was grateful having experienced dramatic side effects in the past. “My eyes would get so bloodshot they’d look dreadful. I had a man in the supermarket come and ask me if I was all right once,” she observed. Subsequent medications proved more tolerable.

She also manages chronic dry eye, a consequence of her condition and treatments. “I haven’t got enough fluid in the eye, particularly my right eye, so if I get something in my eye – like flakes of mascara – I have to wait a little while to get them out.” She’s adapted by avoiding mascara entirely, though she still wears eyeliner.

When her eye does become scratched, she’s learnt to trust the healing process. “I’ll sit down and have a sleep for an hour, and a couple of hours later it’s okay. I know it’ll come right. It’s just a matter of being patient.”

ADAPTING DAILY LIFE

The impact on Estelle’s daily life is significant, though she’s found ways to navigate around her limitations.

For many years, she continued her work as a financial controller by wearing glasses – and at one point prior to a trabeculectomy, using magnifiers on top – until she reached the point of needing a colleague to place her hands on the keyboard “so that I could put my password in correctly”.

“With accounting, you only have to see a bit at a time,” she explained. When preparing reports, “you don’t have to read the whole number… I just had to make sure I input all the numbers one by one and that it balanced at the bottom”.

Night driving has presented her biggest challenge, and although her ophthalmologist hasn’t forbidden her from driving after dark, she’s made the decision herself.

“I really had to, even though I was driving in an area that I know, because I can’t really see in the dark. And if it rains, it’s even worse,” she said. The phenomenon she describes is telling: “The weird thing is, I can see the white lines on the side of the road quite clearly, so I can see where the edge of the road is; but I really don’t want to drive if that’s all I’m driving by.”

But during the day, on familiar roads, she maintains her independence. She lives on a three-and-a-half-acre property in West Auckland, where various family members – including two daughters and three grandsons – reside in self-contained dwellings. Their presence is clearly as much a joy to her as it is helpful, and she’s not afraid to offer them her own advice. Shortly before we started our interview, she had been leaning over the banister, instructing her grandson that his flat needed a good clean – she didn’t need to see the mess, she told me, she could smell it!

THE POWER OF ATTITUDE

What sets Estelle apart isn’t the severity of her condition, but her approach to it. Despite significant vision loss, she remains largely independent, continues to do occasional accounting work for her employer of 36 years, and maintains an active role in glaucoma advocacy.

She’s shared her story through television and radio interviews, spoken at Glaucoma New Zealand symposiums, and been featured in their publications. When asked why she’s so willing to speak publicly, her answer is humble: “I feel like I haven’t got it bad enough, although when I think about it, I know I have.”

This extraordinary resilience – and her maintained sense of humour – are timely reminders that while practitioners manage the disease, it’s patients who manage their lives. The clinical goal isn’t merely to preserve vision – it’s to support patients in living full, meaningful lives despite progressive vision loss. Estelle is living proof that with proper care, realistic adaptation, and a determined spirit, that goal is eminently achievable.

As she puts it: “I think most people don’t realise what I’ve got. And how good is that?”

Indeed.