Josh Bangert, 15, was outside playing basketball when the vision in his left eye suddenly blurred. He took a break, and his vision returned to normal—but the next time he played, the fuzziness came back. It started happening more and more often.
When Josh’s mother took him to the eye doctor, Josh expected to leave with glasses. Instead, the doctor gave him terrible news: Josh had a rare, incurable disease and would probably be blind by the end of the year.
The diagnosis left Josh devastated, thinking only about the things he wouldn’t be able to do: basketball, video games, driving. “I threw myself on my bed and cried,” he remembers.
To clear his mind, Josh took a bike ride. When he got home, it was obvious that his parents and siblings had also been crying. Josh has a large family—seven brothers and sisters—and he was quickly surrounded by people hugging him and promising their support.
Josh started to think, I can handle this. Then he made everyone laugh, joking that he should choose the restaurant for dinner because “it could be the last meal I see.”