MANDEVILLE, Manchester:
There are those who crumble under the pressures of life and then there are those who despite overwhelming challenges choose to remain positive, viewing the problems as just part of their journey and not their entire story.
One such person is Glendon Baker, who despite his partial vision loss and compromised movement on his right side after suffering two strokes, is making lemonade with his lemons and living his life with gratitude for what he has and not what he has lost.
What started out as a casual day in 2014 for Baker, ended with the media practitioner and justice of the peace, recognising that he was having trouble seeing.
“I went to the eye clinic at the hospital and the doctor I saw said it wasn’t anything serious and gave me eye drops and sent me home,” Baker told Family and Religion.
But with his vision gradually deteriorating, Baker returned to the clinic to see the consultant who confirmed retina damage.
However, by this time, it was too late and there was nothing that could be done following the initial misdiagnosis.
“When things are misdiagnosed, we pay often pay a high price, as I did because I have no sight in my left eye. Had I been properly diagnosed, I could have received treatment and possibly saved my sight,” he said.
This unfortunate occurrence was just the first of three major blows Baker had to contend with.
“In 2017, I woke up one day and found myself unable to move and when I looked around I noticed that I was in very strange environment. I then realised that I was bound to the bed at the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH). I had no idea how I got there.”
Baker said his brother had found him unresponsive at home and took him to the Mandeville Regional Hospital before he was transferred to KPH.
As a result of the stroke he had suffered, Baker underwent a surgery to drain blood from around his brain and spent three weeks in the hospital.
“That surgery was successful because I was up and about quicker than people thought I would be able to and I must be give thanks to Dr Campbell and the other doctors on the team.”
But Baker was again hit with another blow, when last year after sitting at his desk at home to complete some work, he realised he could not move and had in fact suffered another stroke.
Attributing his continued healing and every day wins to God and his supportive family, Baker said he has even gained new skills, using his left hand to write commendably.
“I have a church sister who isn’t a trained physiotherapist but I believe she has a gift and started to help me with physical therapy, before I started doing therapy at the hospital. I was not able to use my right hand and my right foot, but now I can use it somewhat.”
He added “I thank God because I do know quite a number of persons, subsequent to my getting the stroke, that have gotten strokes and have not recovered at all and some persons have actually died. I believe God has some unfinished work for me to do and has spared my life to finish the tasks. I can think of no other reason why I would have been spared and so many others succumbed.”
He described the efforts of his family which include his siblings, nephews and niece-in-law, as tremendous source of strength that he would not have been able to live without.
“I am really grateful for what the Lord has done. He is the main reason why I am here today. I became a Christian in 1978 and at no point in my sickness did I think to give up on God. I was born and I grew up in the Moravian church, but 44 years ago I became a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Baker said above all else he wishes that persons will be inspired by his experiences and be led to God.
“Christianity is not so much about what you say, but what you do. People can be won to Christ by people’s lifestyle, which is a more telling sermon that can be preached…If my experiences do not inspire others to glorify God, then it would have all been in vain. When I am gone, I want someone to say that I lived a life that won them to Christ.”
Baker said he wishes to remind people that earth is a transitory place and while nothing is wrong with individuals seeking to excel in endeavours and acquire that which is necessary for comfort on earth, he wants persons to focus on the final destination.
To those who are afflicted, he said focus on the blank sheet of paper and not the dark dot, that doesn’t have the ability to cloud all the good that exists unless it is granted that power.
“There is going to come times in lives when we experience disappointments, but I want persons to remain positive no matter what the situation is. Don’t look at the misfortune. Look at all the oxygen you would have been breathing all these years at no cost and not the time you had to go the hospital to get oxygen…Let us look at the good that exists and not the challenge,” he noted.