ENJOY LIFE: DR JANET GRAY, MBE The Vision Keeping Dr Janet Gray, MBE
One woman's amazing journey from blindness to world class sport - and her return from near-death.
W
hen Janet Gray was 14, she was told she could lose her eyesight, just like her brother and her father. "Though it was genetic, it
was under control. Then a blow to the eye
socket exacerbated the disease," she says in a matter-of-fact way. "Surgeons fought hard to save my sight, but their attempts were in vain." Janet had lived a happy childhood in Belfast, in which she had always been sporty and outgoing. Now she was faced with a very different life. "I tried to believe that once the surgery had settled down my eyesight would come back," she says. "When
I realised it wouldn't, it was a massive kick in the teeth. I was 21 years old and I went from being a confident person to being timorous and vulnerable. Even moving around my own home I was tripping over things." From the stress, she dropped from 8 stone
to 5 stone 10. But bit by bit she regained her confidence. "You have to accept your illness first,
before you can move on," she says. She took to using her white stick and
just taking the bus to go shopping was a major breakthrough. From here, she set up a swimming club for the blind - a revelation for Janet because she'd believed that sport for
her was "out the window". Then her husband asked if she wanted to
come along while he went waterskiing. "It was the first time back on the water for him after injury," she says. "Getting in the boat was great fun, but then he suggested I try skiing. I'd never skied before. "My husband, Paul, put two ropes out the
back of the boat and skied along side me, talking me through what I had to do." It was a turning point in her life. She
joined the local Meteor water ski club, started training and learned to slalom and trick. Then in 1997 she was selected to ski internationally by the Irish Water Ski