When he first noticed a fuzziness in his left eye, in June, high school student Josh Bangert thought he'd simply become dehydrated from playing too hard on the basketball court.

As weeks went by and the 15-year-old's vision worsened, his mom took him to an eye doctor, thinking he needed glasses. Instead, she and Josh were stunned last month to hear an alarming diagnosis: He has a rare genetic disorder called Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy, also known as Leber's disease.

The doctor somberly told Josh that he would be blind in three to five months.

"I went home and cried on my bed," said Josh, who lives in West Chicago, Illinois. "And then I prayed and went outside to ride my bicycle for a while."

When he got home, he saw his parents and seven siblings hugging and crying. It was too much for him. To make them feel better, he lightened the mood with a joke: "Panda Express would be the last dinner that I'd like to see," he told them.

When you come from a large family, you don't always get a say in what you're having for dinner, but this night, Josh got his pick. As the family ate orange chicken, chow mein noodles and fried rice, Josh decided that going blind was bad enough, and that he didn't want his family to be distraught about it.

"I realized that the best way to cope with going blind was to be positive," he said.

He also realized that he had a lot to see in a short period of time - he had never seen the ocean, the desert or a mountain vista. And that's how his bucket list was born.

Now he's racing to take in as much as he can, while he can.

Friends and family members have responded, raising more than $41,000 so far through a GoFundMe account to help the high school sophomore see the country before he completely loses his sight.

A couple of weeks ago, he and several friends went to Missouri to watch his favorite baseball team, the St. Louis Cardinals, play in Busch Stadium...READ MORE