On this week’s Studio 1: Shannon Davis, the family man and former PwC partner who went for a routine eye check up and was told he’d lost 90% of his sight.
Matthew Layton and Sam Rickard present Studio 1 - Vision Australia Radio’s weekly look at life from a low vision and blind point of view.
Our guest this week is family man, high powered business mega-brain and formerly Australia’s number four in junior men’s tennis Shannon Davis.
Unfortunately - proving that sight-loss can happen to anyone - a couple of years ago, out of the blue, Shannon discovered that he’d lost ninety percent of his sight to glaucoma.
Matthew writes:
“Shannon first came into our orbit in March last year, when - within 15 months of discovering that he had lost 90% of his sight to glaucoma - he put himself out there, working as an ambassador for Glaucoma Australia
“As mercenary as it sounds, and as much as I felt for Shannon and his family at a difficult time is way of looking at things - from a consultant’s view - organisational and policy perspective - was quite exciting
In many ways, I felt that his personal loss was going to be to the benefit of other people living with vision impairments and sight loss.
“And I wasn’t wrong.
“A couple of months ago to mark World Glaucoma Week, Shannon and Glaucoma Australia put together a seminar on ‘Financial Wellness’ - basically what can you do to look after yourself and your family financially in the aftermath of sudden and catastrophic sight loss.
“In theory, Shannon was here to promote that seminar.
https://glaucoma.org.au/i-have-glaucoma/living-with-glaucoma/financial-wellness-in-glaucoma-what-assistance-is-out-there
“But because Shannon is incredibly frank about what he’s been through and very generous of spirit, our conversation went in a totally different direction.
Please get in touch with the show, whether you have experience of any of the issues covered in this episode of Studio 1 or if you think there’s something we should be talking about.
You never know your story and your insight may help somebody else who is dealing with something similar.
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EMAIL: [email protected]
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Studio 1 guest Shannon Davis on a beach, dressed in a t-shirt, clearly making the most of his new life.]]
Vision Australia gratefully acknowledges the support of the Community Broadcasting Foundation for Studio 1.
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