I told a story a couple of weeks ago about my wonderful Dad who is completely red-green colour blind. It’s a genetic condition that’s passed on via the X (female) chromosome so if you get the defective gene from your parent it leads to colour blindness in all of the men who inherit the gene because they don’t have a non-faulty version passed from the other parent that would normally counteract its effect. This is because men only have one X chromosome, rather than the two that women have. It’s rare for women to be affected because they’d have to receive faulty genes from both parents. I know this because I AM a scientist! (Or at least I hope to be in a few weeks time.)

My Dad has the faulty gene and it has caused him much sadness over the years. He can’t see red flowers on a green plant and he can’t tell the red ball from the green in snooker not that the latter is much of a problem. Traffic lights are OK because he knows their position on the stack.

A few weeks back, he read an article about oxy-iso lenses and their ability to correct this problem so he sent for a pair from America. They arrived today and guess what? He can see red and green. He can do the Ishihara colour blindness test. Now he needs an optician who is prepared to grind the lenses to his prescription and he can get the benefit properly.

You would not believe the excitement in my parents’ house. What I can tell you is that there have been tears of joy shed. I have a sneaky hunch that Dad’ll be splashing the cash again soon for another pair of lenses because my sister inherited his dodgy gene and one of her sons has inherited it from her. Knowing how generous my folks are, I’ll be prepared to bet there will be a set of these lenses on its way to my nephew before you can say oxy-iso.

It just goes to show doesn’t it? When we spoke to my Dad about these lenses we were both very sceptical, especially after seeing the internet commentary. All I can say to this is that I’ve just spoken to someone I love dearly whose life has been changed today.

So, Daddy – here is some chard that’s green but it has red stems – can you tell where one ends and the other begins? Hee hee.