You have a disease that will make you blind. How do you prepare to lose a key function?
Hong Kong resident Cheng Kwok-kwong, who has degenerative eye disease retinitis pigmentosa, is getting ready for when his vision fails
How would you react if you learned that one day you would lose an important bodily function – your hearing or mobility, say, or your sight?
Although he did not know until he was in his thirties, Hong Kong resident Cheng Kwok-kwong was born with an eye condition known as retinitis pigmentosa (RP).
This rare inherited disease causes progressive vision loss as cells in the light-sensitive retina at the back of the eye slowly degenerate.
It usually leads to night blindness and tunnel vision, and eventually blindness.
As there’s no treatment for this disease, I knew that my eyesight would only get worse. I feared being a burden on others.
Teresa Lee, a social worker and the supervisor at the Hong Kong Society for the Blind Rehabilitation Centre, says about 3,000 people in Hong Kong have the condition.
Cheng was not affected much as he was growing up; he assumed his problems were due to being farsighted – until he received his diagnosis.
