Being on tour with INXS in the 80s, Kirk Pengilly was thinking he might have had a few too many beers when he noticed a change in vision.
“I started seeing this kind of cloudy, foggy halos around the street lights after the show is on our way back to the hotel,” he told Vision Australia Radio’s Studio 1.
“Maybe I had too much beer or something that night.
“But I woke up in excruciating pain like someone was twisting knives in my eyeballs could not open my eyes.”
The pressure in his eyes had reached such a point he says he was “within a millimetre of going blind”.
Photo: Kirk Pengilly (source: Glaucoma Australia)
He was diagnosed with acute angle glaucoma at 28.
“It's not just an old person's disease,” he said.
Thankfully Kirk had ground-breaking surgery to repair the damage, but the experience has definitely stayed with him.
He is an ambassador for World Glaucoma Week and continually speaks about the disease.
“To me your eyesight should be treated like going to the dentist,” he said.
“You just need to do it every couple of years because it gives you that peace of mind because eye disease creeps up on you.”
Listen to the full interview with Kirk Pengilly on Studio 1 in the player below:
Read our factsheet on Glaucoma here.
Studio 1 is Vision Australia Radio’s weekly look at life from a low vision and blind point of view.
To get in touch with the show. Call or text: 0450 078 834 or email [email protected].