It wasn't until he was in his early twenties that doctors discovered that Jim Knipfel's nearsightedness was the result of an untreatable rare genetic eye disease known as retinitis pigmentosa, which, they said, would leave him blind within a few short years. Furthermore, he was informed, it was an inoperable brain lesion that was causing the suicidal depression and emotional free-for-all he was experiencing. Add to that a drinking problem, a marriage on the rocks, and a lack of any obvious job skills, and you have a young man on the fast track toward oblivion.