"It's something that carries me through the emotions when it's hard."

Hadley

“It’s something that carries me through the emotions when it’s hard”

Todd: didn't really want to take it the truth that I was losing my vision and I kept denying it. And that just brought me lower.

Marc: This is Hadley’s Insights and Sound Bites, where people facing vision loss share what has helped them cope and adjust.

Todd: Hello, my name is Todd Dugal. I am from Quincy, Illinois and I'm here today just to share my story.

I was a general manager and a partner of ownership running a restaurant and everything was going great. I was able to supply for my family and supply for my kids and just felt like everything was going great. And then I have a severe case of glaucoma and have totally lost vision in one of my eyes, no light or anything. And then the other one, I only have 5% of my optic nerve left. So now all I see is it's cloudy, I'm not able to drive, I'm not able to work. Which was really the hardest thing that I went through was with my vision loss journey, I came to the realization and felt unworthy. I felt useless. I went through a very hard time of anger and depression because of I felt like how am I going to supply for my family?

How am I going to be able to do the things I normally do? And it was difficult. I didn't really want to take it the truth that I was losing my vision and I kept denying it. And that just brought me lower.

One of the greatest things that I had help from was my family. And at that time I was very rude. I ashamedly say I treated them in the worst of ways when they loved me the most, I was turning my back on them. And there was times when I wanted to throw the towel in and say, I'm done. I'm worth more dead than I am alive, just to put it plain and transparent.

It was very hard for me to go through my personal emotions. And one of the things that I started doing was I started just journaling, using my journal on my phone that's audible. And I would just, whatever I was feeling that day, I would journal it, I'd put it down, and then later I could go back and I would listen to it and I'd dwell on it and think, where am I at?

And I've realized that I am still the same person.

And with that strength, I can overcome the emotions and know I am worthy of who I am. I can still function, I can still be a husband, I can still be a father, a grandpa. I can still do the things. One of the craziest things that I've been able to do and my kids laugh at me is it was one of my grandson's ninth birthday, and we went bowling and I was beating more than half of the people there because it's just, you get it in your mind, okay, these many steps, I got to do this, I had to do this. But we had fun, we had a blast. And I was grandpa, I was there, as my grandsons always say papa. So, it's something that will carry you through the emotions, when it's hard. I always think of it, it's like running uphill. But the thing is there's always a top.

There's always a plateau that you will get to and it levels out and you can just take some deep breaths. You can realize I made it through.

Marc: You never know who might need to hear your story. If you’d like to share with us, just leave us a message on our Insights & Sound Bites voicemail. By calling, 847-512-4867. Or, you can use your smartphone or computer and email us a recording to [email protected].