When I was 11 years old my eye suddenly became very red. The doctor felt it was pink eye and for three weeks treated me with medications for that problem. The redness only got worse so my parents took me to the eye clinic where we discovered that I had a disease in my eye called uveitis. It is an auto-immune disease that they sometimes cannot explain why a person has it. Unfortunately from the beginning it was a very severe case, and it even spread to my other eye. My pupils attached to my irises, and were actually in the shapes of a star. They were not able to even open and close to respond to light. Over the next 2 1/2 years I spent a lot of my time going to doctors at the eye clinic, to the clinic in Marshfield, and even to a specialist in Boston. Sometimes I even would have to go daily for periods of time. My treatments included using oral medications and steroid eye drops. There were many times I would have to do multiple drops every hour while I was awake. The drops had to be spaced apart, so it would take about 20 minutes to do them, and then I would have to start all over on the hour. Even with all these medications, my disease worsened. In order to get the disease under control new medications had to be added. I had to use a low-dosage chemotherapy called methotrexate. I learned to give myself the injections in my stomach. Even that did not control the disease so the doctors added Humira to my schedule. Finally, after adding the Humira, the disease finally went into remission. It took over almost a year to stop the destruction that the uveitis was causing. Before the disease was able to be controlled, however, my eyes suffered a lot of damage. I developed cataracts which caused the lenses in my eyes to become severely fogged. I couldn't even read the big E on the eye charts. Everything just looked like a colored blob. I couldn't read anything or see anything clearly. I also developed glaucoma which caused very high pressures in my eyes. Because of all the damage I needed many operations to try to control the pressures and to recover as much of my vision as possible. In the 2 1/2 years from the beginning, I had nine surgeries or procedures, including putting shunts in both eyes to control the pressures and replacing the lenses in both eyes. Thankfully the medications continue to control the disease and my bi-focal glasses allow me to see very well again. I will go to see my Boston specialist in August to determine if I can start to taper off my medications starting in November of 2013, hoping that my immune system will forget that it wanted to attack my eyes, and that it will no longer cause so many problems for me. It has been a difficult 3 1/2 years for me, but I have worked hard to keep going and do my best. I am thankful for all the people who have helped me along the way, especially my teachers and my family and friends. I may even want to be an eye doctor someday so I can help others like my doctors and nurses have helped me.