Four months after Rocky Mountain Eye Center closed all its offices, a Pueblo optometrist who once worked for the business started a new practice and brought seven former staffers with him.

Scheicho Scheifa is haunted by the fear of going blind. A disease called trachoma has turned his eyelids inwards, causing his eyelashes to scar his corneas so badly that one has already turned opaque.

It can cause vision loss and pain when you move your eyes. As the inflammation goes away, your symptoms usually get better. The optic nerve carries visual information from the eye to the brain.

"Recently, I learned that the surface of my eye is wounded, and the left eye is severely damaged. The pain affects my ability to work and perform daily tasks," the father-of-two told AFP.