For Doris McGuire, 86, appearing in Geordie Hospita l's final episode was a chance to celebrate for two reasons - she was having her second cataract operation and it was also her birthday!
The Chapel House pensioner and mother of two told ChronicleLive how having her operations at the Newcastle Cataract Centre had been almost painless - and she said they had made the "world of difference".
Sister Helen Phillipson leads the cataract centre, newly opened at the time of filming last July, in Westgate Road.
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Doris said she had found the experience easy - and though added she wasn't terribly keen about watching herself on camera.
"I had one operation two or three months earlier, then I had the second on the July 14," she said. "I can remember the date as it was my birthday and that of one of the people in the operating theatre.
"I think everyone is a little bit nervous when you have something done that's going in your eyes, and I was nervous for my first one.
"But by the time of the second it was fine. It's nothing to be afraid of. It's not very painful - there's a little bit of discomfort but nothing that I couldn't put up with."
Doris - who explained on TV that she was a big reader, though not a fan of murders - added: "It's made such a lot of difference to me. I was having to wear contact lenses each day."
She said she was always frustrated by having to clean the lenses - and much preferred not having to do so now she has had the operations.
"Now I can read pretty much anything, except for the tiny tiny print on the back of medicines, so I bought some 'readers'," she said. "They're the little glasses you can get in the shops.
"It's wonderful, I would tell everyone to get it done."
The cataract centre opened last year and has capacity to carry out up to 1,000 procedures a month - which is vital given ophthalmology procedures have been among the worst hit operations during Covid-19, with many patients waiting significant periods.
Geordie Hospital now airs on Channel 4 on Tuesdays from 8pm. The whole series is available on All4.
