Often blind people need community more than its cheap imitation service.
The following story describes the incredible journey of a newly blinded
boy and his incredible community in New Mexico.

kelly



Albuquerque Journal

Sunday, November 14, 1999
EDDIE MOORE/JOURNAL
FRIENDLY SUPPORT: Renn Bailey, center, with an arm around his friend Matt
Armijo, right, and classmate Ryan Bramblett are ready for a spelling game
in their fifth-grade class.
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Finding a Way

By Rebecca Roybal
Of the Journal
A package came in the mail for 10-year-old Renn Bailey earlier this month.
"Is it a big car?" Renn asked hopefully.
  He ripped open the brown wrapping and excitedly clutched the gift.
  His fingers squeezed the wheels. And he held the object to his eyes as if
he could absorb its image and see what he was holding.

EDDIE MOORE/JOURNAL
CALCULATOR: Renn Bailey has mastered the abacus, which he uses for math
homework.
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  Just eight months ago, Renn could have seen the blue and white toy car
with smooth curves and glossy finish.
  Now, he uses his hands to see the world, to see such things as his new
toy car.
  In early spring, Renn and his buddy, up early from a sleepover, decided
to climb a towering ponderosa pine tree. Once they started, they kept
climbing.
  Renn fell about 37 feet, landing face-first onto volcanic rock. The fall
snapped his optic nerves, robbing him of his eyesight.
  Surviving such a fall is unheard of, said Kim Atwater, a volunteer
emergency medical technician in Des Moines.
  "It's an absolute miracle that he lived," Atwater said.
  His head injuries left him in rehabilitation, where he had to learn to
walk, eat and be a little boy again.


Group effort
  Many of the 200 residents in Des Moines, a remote ranching community in
far northeastern New Mexico, rallied to help. Residents, teachers and
classmates volunteered to learn Braille so they could help Renn in school.
  "An accident like Renn's touches the very soul of the community," said
Midge Graham, the school superintendent.
  Renn is described by his teachers as a hero and by his classmates as
someone special. His parents call him a walking miracle.
  "He's definitely an inspiration to everyone around here," said Marisa
Geisheimer, a physical therapist at Carrie Tingley Hospital in Albuquerque
who helped the youngster learn to walk again. "If Renn can do it, everyone
else can do it. We kind of use him as a standard now."
  John Phillips, a pediatric neurologist and director of pediatric
rehabilitation at Carrie Tingley, said Renn has overcome what would be
"insurmountable obstacles" for some people.
  "The injury that he had is unusual -- acquired blindness at his age,"
Phillips said. "He seemed to participate in therapy and work hard and not
get real down or depressed or duly sad about it all, so he was able to be a
real inspiration to all of us. He was adapting to a new life, new
environment."
  With his 12-year-old sister, Deedee, leading the way, Renn's classmates,
teachers and even the Des Moines school superintendent formed a Braille
club so they could learn the reading system and help guide Renn through
school.
  Elders in the community have pitched in by recording books on tape for
Renn, an avid reader.
  "This is a very, very, very unusual community," said Joanie Carlisle,
outreach consultant for the New Mexico School for the Visually Handicapped.
"I had 20 people during the summer learning Braille. I go out to other
places and don't get this result."
  With the help of Carlisle -- along with his own strong spirit and sense
of humor -- Renn is learning how to be blind.
  When he walks on the dusty roadside in the town where everything is
within walking distance, he pauses to wave to passing motorists. They wave
back.
  One day, Renn waved at a United Parcel Service driver.
  "Melvin waved back," said Renn's mother, Tana Bailey. "Melvin thought,
'Why am I waving to him?' ''


Long fall
  When the phone call came on March 28 -- a Sunday -- Renn's mother was
getting ready to attend a morning church sermon.
  His father was outside building a pen for Renn's burro. His sister and
her friend were playing in her room.
  It was the father of Renn's friend on the phone, calling to say the
fourth-grader had fallen and needed to be rushed to the hospital in Raton,
37 miles away. The Baileys figured Renn would need a few stitches and would
be home the same day.
  Renn remembers falling out of the tree in Pine Forest, near his friend's
house.
  His friend told him to stay put, then rode a mile on his bike with two
flat tires to get help from his father.
  Renn fought for his life from the beginning, said Atwater, who drove him
to Raton in an ambulance.
  "He kept us all busy for the whole trip to town," Atwater said. "The hard
part about Renn's accident was we knew him.
  "At the time of the accident, we knew how critical his injuries were, but
we were told he fell 10 feet. (His friend) was just estimating. To a kid,
what's 10 feet?"
  Renn's father, Clay, rode with him to the hospital in Raton. During the
ride, Clay's words to his son about the family's pet llama and the new race
cart Renn would soon get to drive helped the boy stay lucid, Atwater said.
  "Clay and Tana handled it beautifully," she said. "They did what they had
to do as parents. It made a big difference to Renn. He thought there must
be hope because of the way his parents were acting. And he was a critical
little boy."
  Once in Raton, doctors "put him in a drug-induced coma," and determined
Renn needed to be airlifted to a trauma center.
  The Baileys, who tried to remain calm, chose University Hospital in
Albuquerque. Clay rode along on the airplane; Tana drove.
  Once in Albuquerque, "I was standing around counting the 24 people
working on him," Clay said. "(He) was stripped down and I could see his
little brain ticking."


Tough wait
  Phillips said Renn was bleeding in the front part of the brain, and had
broken bones around his eyeball, his skull and one of his jaws.
  Doctors removed some bones in Renn's skull so they could get to a blood
clot in his brain. During the eight-week stay at University and Carrie
Tingley hospitals, Renn had two surgeries.
  "He got so bad," Clay said, "you couldn't tell he was my boy. You
couldn't tell he was anyone."
  The family didn't know whether they'd lose Renn.
  Tana prayed.
  "That's probably what got her through it, and she's what got me through
it," Clay said.
  Clay, the son of a preacher, still wonders, "Why Renn?"
  "If there's that much power up there, why didn't God reach out and catch
him?"
  After five long days, Renn pulled out of the coma and was breathing on
his own, but doctors didn't know if he'd suffered brain damage, Clay said.
  It wasn't long before the family knew that Renn was Renn.
  "Two little tears came out of his eyes when I told him he'd have to see
with his hands," Clay said.
  But Renn never uttered the words, "I can't." Not even when he was so
dizzy he couldn't eat or stand up. Not even when his therapist and parents
insisted that he try taking another step. Much of being able to balance is
being able to see.
  "The hardest thing I've ever done is have to watch my kid walk into a
wall," Clay said.
  When Renn was well enough, he talked about taking his souped-up race cart
for a spin. "Renn, you're blind," Clay said he told him. "You're not going
to race."
  "Dad, anything is possible," Renn replied.


Moving along
  Renn has drowsy-looking eyes and a quarter-inch thick scar outlining the
top of his head in the shape of a rainbow. He also has a bottomless pit of
energy and an appetite to match.
  The Baileys say Renn still has to endure another plastic surgery to
further reconstruct his forehead.
  But he's already survived the toughest part.
  Geisheimer said once her "little buddy" found his way from his room at
Carrie Tingley to the recreation room at the children's hospital, "he took
off."
  He progressed from being able to walk less than 10 feet to occasionally
playing soccer at school.
  In fact, Renn is a brisk walker who finds his way to and from school --
about 21/2 blocks -- on his own. He can find his way to the post office and
knows right where his family's boxes are -- the usual things for 10-year-olds.
  The only difference is that Renn finds his way with the guidance of a
cane and a heightened sense of feeling and hearing.
  "Walking to and from school, I'm used to it," Renn said as he led his
mother and his coach, Carlisle, on a walk. "How I know to get there is I
walk out of the gravel, to the corner, to the first driveway. Then I know
I'll get to the fence."
  He has a good sense of direction. But, he added, "sometimes I do get lost."
  All it takes is missing a turn by a block and losing sense of how far
he's actually walked -- even in a town where everything is within walking
distance.
  At school during lunch recess, Renn and a friend, 11-year-old Matt
Armijo, walk around the school's track to a stoop Renn has claimed as his own.
  "There's a person right in front of you," Armijo said as he guided Renn.
  Renn still dreams of being a race car driver. He's hoping that a medical
breakthrough will give him the chance. He's thinking along the lines of "a
mask so I could see or something -- that would be cool."
  Until then, he plans to take over his dad's business running a propane
company.
  "I want to be a propane man," Renn said. "I want to take over the
company. Then I want to race NASCARs." Renn said it only makes sense to
have a positive attitude about life.
  "I learned (at Carrie Tingley) that if you don't think you can do it,
you'll never get it done," he said.


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