KCGB Forum friend Francisco Rebello from London shares his inspiring story:

I see the messages on the KCGB Forum of people really suffering with kerataconus. Speaking from experience of someone, who has had really bad KC, I’m telling you, it can very well be fine.

I’ve know the pain of seeing your eyesight slowly diminish over years, I know the pain of fitting and failing all the small hard contact lenses, them falling out and having to buy new ones straight away, I know about Moorfields NHS  waiting rooms, i know about seeing with a scleral lens for the first time, and feeling like wtf, I know how it is to wake up with hydrops and write of your vision in one eye for months, I know what it is to do internships in new companies with one eye glowing white with hydrops, I know what it is like to take months of work to wait in hope for hydrops to clear, I know what it is to be told you should have surgery.

I know that feeling of thinking “this gonna ruin my life”. But I’m telling you, right now I work as a graphic designer in London, and nobody even knows that I’ve had this problem.

I’ve had two corneal grafts, and prior to that I have got on with contact lenses and hospital appointments. Right now I just wear glasses, and get on like a normal person doing a job that really does require my eyesight.

STAY POSITIVE

So don’t lose hope, stay patient, speak to your doctors about any anxieties. And carry on with your careers and dreams.

A doctor once told me, that everyone goes to the internet when something goes wrong. But no-one leaves messages in forums when everything goes right and their life carries on. So here’s my  message to give you guys hope. I was just like many of you, super anxious and coming to the Forum  to calm my fears.

BE PATIENT

Honestly the best thing is to keep clam and patient, and trust the doctors. It’s often trial and error. Especially with contact lenses.

Relatives and others will tell you the worst. But the doctors know what the real situation is. Keratoconus is definitely something that involves patience, it takes weeks and months of going for contact lenses and glasses before you get the perfect ones. Also my late teens/ early twenties is where it peaked. So its good to spot it  and care for it early.

So if I could write a message back to myself then. This is it. And even if you have to go with out full vision. Theres so much can be done.

Good luck!

Read more from Francisco http://mykceyes.tumblr.com/