Coronation Street star faces fresh health fears as team rally around her after diagnosis

Ex Coronation Street star Lisa George has opened up about her fears of returning to the pantomime stage with her eye condition.Last year, the 51-year-old was diagnosed with NAION - Non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy - a little-known condition, where a loss of blood flow and oxygen delivery to the optic nerve causes sudden and painless vision loss in one eye.Lisa feared she'd never be able to act again when she became partially blind in one eye and left with peripheral vision in the other.Since leaving her role as Beth Tinker in Coronation Street, however, she has gone back to her roots in the pantomime world but admits it's come with fear and help from her team.Ahead of taking on the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella, the actress called for a meeting about her needs, in particular, help with coming off stage in the dark.She shared: "I just thought, 'I'm never going to be able to do this, I won't be able to see a thing'.

I have spoken to the director about it, and he was like, 'You won't be in the dark alone, there will be someone to help you'."That, deep down, was my big fear.

It's still a subconscious fear, let's just say that."They're [the team] brilliant, they were like, 'Don't worry at all, there will always be someone there for you'."Recalling the time her eyesight began to deteriorate, Lisa admits she feared the worst and experienced depression."When my first eye went, I was really depressed, I had my license taken off me," she shared. "And, I was really depressed thinking, 'Oh my god I'm not going to be able to drive'."I had an eye patch after about three months and I was in a lot of pain, my right eye was my worse, where I've got more vision damage."I was really like, 'Oh my god what's going to happen?'