Table 5.

Interview transcript quotations: the impact of nAMD

Quote
“I think that I am not the normal nAMD patient. I don't have a problem with my vision, and I don't need any help. I can do everything by myself and get along well by myself”
“It's eyesight, for my age, I think it's probably near perfect”
“In the past, I fell down several times when I was running after the bus because of this eye that no longer sees. One must know that I don’t have three-dimensional vision since my other eye doesn’t work anymore. I don't see the difference in height anymore, I stumble”
“Well, it's difficult with transport. I can't get out you see. I've got to rely on my son”
“My son drives me, or my husband”
“I don’t want [my wife] to accompany me […] as long as I’m autonomous, I want it to be this way”
“I don’t need any support. Only when I come down the stairs at the doctor’s because I can't see very well. When my husband is standing there, he helps me…”
“[My wife is] great. She knows I can’t stand the light. The home is in darkness when I’m back at home”
“I've stopped knitting. I've knitted for years for charity, and I've had to stop it, just because I don't want to push the eye into more”
“I had to notify my bank and say, ‘look, it’s no good you sending me a bank statement, I can't read it’ […] I said, ‘is there anything you can do for me?’, and they said, ‘yes, we can put it in large print’. Now I get great big sheets of paper”
“I wouldn't go to a support group. I think I'm so stable that I would be more negatively stimulated there if everyone told me their misery”
“Carrots, lentils, that’s classical. Blueberries … good for vision. And the intern in the ER prescribed me a treatment to cure vision, not to cure nAMD, [but] vision. It is a food supplement with omega 3, lutein, zinc…”
“Formerly, it cost an enormous amount of money. With my mother, the injection still cost around 1000 euros. Now I pay about 6–7 euros in addition to my health insurance […] I would advise people not to be afraid”