Blind Spot: The Five Biggest Mistakes Spiritual Leaders Make - Pennington, JOFMM Fall 2004

You may be one of several million people in the US who are
slowly, unknowingly going blind. The culprit is a stealthy disease
called glaucoma. Pressure builds up slowly and gradually within
the eye and creates a slow deterioration of the optic nerve, killing
the nerve endings until blind spots develop in the field of vision.
Because it happens so slowly and imperceptibly, the victim is simply
clueless to its existence. If the disease is left undetected, one
morning a person with glaucoma will wake up and be blind in that
eye. The blind spots will ultimately result in complete, permanent
blindness. Twenty years ago I was diagnosed with the disease.
Since then, in spite of more than a hundred laser shots to each eye
and surgery, my right eye has sustained 90 percent damage and a
blind spot that is about a quarter of its field of vision. I can see
nothing there, but until it was diagnosed, I never would have imagined
that I had a blind spot.