The Journey

by Sean Malone

From the Editor: This article is taken from Gem State Milestones, the newsletter of the National Federation of the Blind of Idaho. The transition to blindness can pose significant challenges, but those are much more difficult when we have to deal with conditions that sometimes cause the blindness. Here is Sean’s experience through challenge and success:

I could say my journey in my life begins on June 12, 1968—which it does—but I will fast forward, skipping the normal childhood and adulthood years. My story is about after I was diagnosed with diabetes twenty-one years ago; that’s when this journey began in which I adopted the lifestyle that would lead me into a different world, a world in which not knowing what would happen to me was my reality.

I started losing my eyesight in April 2009, not knowing that everything that I had known being a sighted person would change. I believed I had suddenly lost my independence—which I came to know is not true—but the journey of opening doors and avenues for me that I would never believe had begun.

Then eight years ago my kidneys started failing, and I soon began dialysis while still grieving for the changes the loss of eyesight had presented. After a long bout with depression and weight gain, I was approached by a social worker who started talking about a kidney transplant. Now the journey was trying and hoping that one day it would happen.

Though accepting everything that was going on was not easy, and at times I felt hopeless and lost, I never stopped believing in trying and stayed hungry and strong. My hope was that the day would come when I would not need to be attached to the machine that was keeping me alive three days a week.

I had to undergo a colonoscopy, and they found a mass growing. Although benign, it still had to be removed because I had to have a clean bill of health for a transplant—another trial along the way but still never giving up hope. In January I had a successful removal of the part of my colon that needed to come out, and I healed quickly.

In early April I received a call that I had waited so long to hear. I had gone active on the kidney transplant list, being told it could be anywhere from ten weeks to six months. It was actually only three weeks, which is the quickest they said they had ever seen.

On April 18 I got another call and traveled to Salt Lake City from Idaho Falls, Idaho, for a skirt surgery scheduled April 19. After all the years of hoping and waiting and preparing myself, it finally was happening; many prayers and hopes and dreams were finally answered. And I’m now on the road to recovery.

I would like to encourage all out there struggling with the same disease who are exhausted by not knowing, being scared, and growing tired and weary by all of this to never give up believing because brighter days are ahead. Everything that I have gone through and you are going through is so worth it. To be given the gift of life from somebody who loves theirs is truly a lovely experience. The passion in me is to help you never give up hope and believing.

And what really helped me and can also help you is a strong belief in God. I have been truly shown that God is love, kindness, and patience—miracles truly do happen. The pleading I did many times on my knees in prayer with tears was finally answered, and it can be the same for you. We can truly live the life we want.