Imagine that you are diagnosed with an eye disease and told that you will go  blind. Imagine trying to explain to coworkers that TODAY you cannot see well and must ask for a helping hand. Imagine that you start out driving to a job, and before you arrive your vision has clouded over so much that you can barely finish driving to the location, let alone perform your job when you get there. Imagine that you can no longer see well enough to cut your own fingernails.

Nobody can maintain much self-confidence under those conditions. It seems you are always apologizing, or you do a lot of "winging it." You can't see street  signs or stoplights, so you quit driving and must resort to begging rides all  the time. If you tell people the name of your eye disease, nobody ever heard of  it.

 The feeling of being all alone and totally inadequate can foster major depression in Fuchs' sufferers. One of the purposes of our support group is to  cheer on one another and help each other hang on to some of the joy in life.

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