The most intimate moment in the life of a parent happens as darkness overcomes the day and you tell your children a bedtime story, tuck them into bed, and kiss them goodnight. For years, our son Tom needed a night light to eliminate his fear of the dark and allow him to sleep.
The other day I had the privilege of referring our friend Suzanne Thornton to Dr. Sameh Mosaed, a researcher and practicing physician at the Gavin Herbert Eye Institute (GHEI) with a special interest in glaucoma. Over lunch our friend Suzanne candidly talked about her overwhelming sense of fear at her loss of vision, the recent falls she had taken, and the steps up or down she couldn’t see. Thankfully Dr. Mosaed is very confident in Suzanne’s prognosis based on the cutting edge improvement in surgical outcomes for glaucoma due to her research at GHEI.
For 8 years I served as a member of the Academy of Ophthalmology’s Foundation Board. In that time we conducted a number of studies in all areas of vision preservation. The one that I believe was most meaningful occurred when we asked thousands of people to express what frightened them most in life. Frankly, I was really surprised at the results of the study. I was sure that people would say maybe stage four cancer, or ALS, or some other terminal disease would be the thing that would frighten them the most. I would have imagined that they might talk about the loss of a loved one or even the fear of a natural disaster. The results of the study were very clear. 62% of all the participants said that the loss of vision was the single most frightening possibility they would ever have to face.
The Discovery Eye Foundation is committed to relieving people of their greatest fear by supporting the research that someday may eliminate most forms of blindness. We remain grateful for all of your support as we strive to overcome people’s greatest fear, the loss of sight
Tom Sullivan