“My Healing Testimony”
by Martin M. Kennedy

     As many of you know I have had poor vision all my life.  I was born two months premature on October 22, 1955.  I was placed in incubation where I received too much oxygen.  What resulted was a condition known as R.O.P. or Retinopathy of Prematurity.  This left me with some vision in my left eye and almost none in the right.  As a child I never received great vision care.  Especially so between 1964 and 1968.  During this time my grandmother on my dad’s side took my family in after my mom’s death.  My grandmother sent me to a quack who was treating my uncle.  He too has poor vision, but unrelated to mine.  Both of us were treated for Glaucoma.  He, for many, many years.  When my dad got a new job in 1967 as a longshoreman / mechanic, my family finally had good health care for the first time.  During my first exam the new doctor exclaimed I don’t have Glaucoma, and probably never will!  Everyone, including my uncle, was shocked!  All that time, money, and effort; wasted!

     The funny irony of all this is I didn’t now how bad my sight was until I turned 15.  I found out when I took the eye test for my drivers’ permit.  The DMV examiner about fell off his stool!  He asked me, “You MUST be kidding?  You really want to drive?!”  I was heartbroken, my parents shocked, and even my uncle was amazed!  We all thought my sight was better than that!  I was told to “accept my condition,”  that I’d never drive.  I simply refused and tried to be as normal as I could be.

     With the vision in my left eye I felt it was no big deal.  I got around well on foot or on a bicycle.  I didn’t look or act “blind.”  When my family moved to the country in 1968, I learned to ride my dad’s Hodaka motorcycle.  I rode that bike all over the place on top of a hill behind our property.  Many years after being on my own, I still owned and rode dirt bikes.  My favorite was a 1974 XL 350 Honda.  It still is.  It ran forever and was easy to ride, like a big, two wheeled John Deere. The passion to drive one day never died.  I just kept it going on the dirt.  I think it’s my dad’s fault, he souped up and raced about everything he’s owned!  Especially when he was young.  He’s 69 now and still likes to “open it up” once in a while.  Ask me why driving is so important to me: It’s in the genes!  Besides I’d learned I wasn’t all that far off visually, it was just a matter of time, and faith.

     In 1975 I was beat up at a gas station I worked for and suffered a detached retina in my left eye.  This left me legally blind, yet sort of on the ragged edge of not being.  My vision kept changing for the better.  Yet more confusion surrounded my condition, I was in this gray area that just frustrated me to no end.  There have been times I wasn’t legally blind, but I couldn’t drive either.  And there were times I could ride a moped and still be legally blind!

     My vision improved well enough to get a moped license in 1986, but a second operation in 1989 put me back on Disability again!  I’d rejected a band used in the first retina operation.  The band is used to put pressure on the eyeball to hold the retina in place.  Rejection is very rare, having something go awry during the operation was even more rare, but it happened!  Since 1975 I felt like a human yo-yo!  A lot of people thought I was lying or nuts.  Employers didn’t know how to react.  Government agencies did not know what to do.  I don’t fit the mold!  I never have!  My sight at the same time was too good to meet one agency’s rules, but not another’s!  Then someone comes along and changes the rules!  Many a time I found myself crying out to God, “Get me off this fence!”

     Since the 1989 operation my sight was on the mend again, but the doctors said I was still legally blind due to the trauma.  In 1994 I noticed a marked change, I could read the 20/100 line with ease.  Three years ago I could see the 20/80 line, that’s when I was beginning to question my “legal” blindness.  Again, I was told to wait.  During this time I was seeing stop lights change at greater distances and seeing more detail in far away things.  I’d startle myself sometimes while walking down the street.  I’d be looking at the crosswalk light at the next intersection instead of the light I was supposed to be watching!  it starts blinking and I about jump out of my skin!  All along I was receiving prayer, and I too was praying a lot.  I knew I was getting closer to that 20/70 line everyday.  For that’s the minimum to be able to drive a car with.  Then in the middle of last year I noticed more change.  My prescription was too strong, again!  I tagged half of the 20/70 line with a new contact lens.  Since then the left lens in my glasses is now too strong!  It was new last year as well!  Yet again, I was told to wait.  Then something else cropped up, my back.

     Last September the sciatic nerve in my lower back went nuts.  I was in pain for three months and I could barely walk.  This severely effected me in riding the bus.  In November I began seeing a Christian chiropractor.  He took X-rays and found I had two older fractured vertebrae, so he went to work straightening me out.  The only thing I could attribute the injury to was stepping off a ladder three years ago.  I was painting my house.  I also was known as a “human forklift.”  If anyone wanted anything moved, they’d call me.  Again the prayer went up.  I was in a real mess, I couldn’t get around, yet I didn’t want to be stuck at home all the time.  Riding in cars was much easier, but getting a ride was a hassle.  As I got better, I tried riding the bus more.  But it was still a hassle up to about mid March.  So on April 12th, I wrote DMV to ask them if they had any ideas.  Anything had to be better than riding the bus!  I didn’t care if I had to drive a tractor as long as it didn’t wipe out my back!

     Instead I got this form my doctor had to fill out. I was to comply or lose my “driving privileges.”  Not quite what I was looking for.  See, I’d hung on to my moped license in hopes things would improve after that last operation.  Not only was that an act of faith, but also from the insistence of a DMV employee!  In late April my back was doing way better and the chiropractic visits were cut back to once a month!  Praise Jesus!  By then I was back out, preaching again!

     On May 25th the suspense concerning that report came to even a more suspenseful end.  I was running late for the exam so I quickly put in my contact lens.  I discovered I didn’t get all the soap off of it.  I rinsed it off, put it back on, and “jetted” out the door.  As I was on my way I was praying for everything to work.  The lens was not cooperating at all, I could hardly see.  As I got to the clinic I was on “pins and needles.”  When the exam began I read the fourth line down from the top.  I thought I did OK and wasn’t too concerned.  After the acuity test, my doctor cleaned my lens.  But he also put in drops to dialate my eyes.  I could see much better, but the drops were also taking effect.  “No second shot at the chart today.” I reasoned.  So as the exam progressed I asked him what my “numbers” were.  He said 20’/70 on the chart and 120 degrees peripheral.  Glaucoma and the retina checks were fine.

     20/70 is an all time best, but with a dirty lens?! Wow!  My peripheral vision has changed slightly.  A couple years ago I discovered I could read the numbers at night on my clock radio without correction!  Of which the surgeons at OHSU told me both would never happen!  But I’ve messed them up from time to time during post op treatments in 1990!  My own eye doctor at first said it was “cells.”  I believe he’s now convinced something greater is at work here!  Praise Jesus!  When the exam was over my doctor filled out the DMV form.  I did not think of asking him what he wrote and he did not tell me either.  I’d know soon enough from DMV.  He gave me his copy after he ran off another for his records.  The original went to DMV.  So I went home and waited for the dialation to wear off.  Four hours later I could read the form and I about fell off my couch!

     I reads, “OK to have daylight restricted drivers’ license.” In my doctor’s own hand writing!  Also there’s a box on the form where next to it reads, “Be permitted to operate motor vehicle if otherwise qualified.”!  It was checked off!!  Who says Christmas only comes on December 25th?  Dear Brothers and Sisters I am simply “blown away!”  My doctor is known for surprises now and then, but this one took the cake!  This has been a life long ambition of mine, to drive.  Finally there is no more confusion as to what agency’s criterion I fit in!  I know where I stand!  That’s a liberating feeling!  Praise Jesus!

     Not long after the good news I went to DMV to trade in my old moped license.  The lady at the desk had never seen one before, she told me it was a “Class C” drivers’ license already.  So when my number was called to the main desk, I asked the clerk there.  She said I’d have to start over again with a learners’ permit.  No problem, I grabbed a drivers’ manual and took it home.  On September 17th, 1999 I went in to the downtown DMV and took the written test.  Passed it with a perfect score on the first try.  Whew!  Thank you Jesus!  Now the fun part, the eye test.

     I was called up to the exam machine, hoping and praying I’d pass.  When the examiner showed me the eye chart I couldn’t read a thing.  So he showed me the sign chart and got them all without a problem.  So he explained to me the chart is a 20/40 chart, I told him my vision is 20/70.  He then switched the “daytime” white eye chart to a darker background “night time” one.  I could actually make out a couple letters.  That surprised the both of us, and he asked me, “You mean to tell me you can see better at night than in the day time?”  I looked at him and smiled thinking it must have been the glare on the day time chart that made the difference.  The last test was for peripheral vision.  I was so excited I almost blew it!  But I got it once I settled down.  By this time I was higher than a kite emotionally.  I did not know what to think or do.

     The examiner asked me to show my documents to his supervisor and she said she did not see any reason why I can’t drive.  The examiner then had my picture taken and when he handed me the permit he told me I was, “Ready to rock and roll!”  WOW!  I had a real drivers’ permit in my hands!  I was about to came out of my skin with joy!  I told him this has been an answer to a twenty eight year struggle, and an answer to prayer.  I told him I’m just happy to have even if I were to drive a tractor!  He said, “Just as long as you drive safely.”  I replied, “I plan on that!”  When I’d walked down to where Ron and Karen Rohman were ministering at 5th and Morrison, I let out the loudest “YES!” in Portland history!  I couldn’t help but tell people on the corner what Jesus did for me,  It was one of the most exciting and wonderful days of my life.  And all the praises and glory go to Jesus!

     Now that it’s here I’m extremely humbled and grateful to Jesus to allow it to happen!  For this means I can get around more easily.  And to simply go places and do things I can’t get to or do on the bus.  Ya ever carry bundles of steel tubing on a bus?  Or motorcycle parts?  Or a double hung window, which is illegal to do?  I’ve done it all, including carrying a 100 pound tool chest to college each day for four hours, round trip, for two years!  I can’t do that anymore!  So this ability to drive really means a lot to me!  Finally I’m “Free at last!”  Praise the name of Yah!  So far I’ve driven to Scappoose on, yes, US 30, from just north of the St. Johns Bridge twice.  It was a bit freaky and fun at the same time.  I’d never driven anything, except dirt bikes, faster than thirty miles an hour.  I soon found out starting out on grades with a clutch can be interesting, but I did pretty good.  I already know how to shift and steer, it’s just a matter of getting used to doing it in traffic, and at speed.  That will come once I get my truck done.  I’ve been slowly rebuilding an “80 Chevy LUV 4x4.  It should be on the road by February 2000.  It has a rebuilt engine I did myself. I’ve gone through the front suspension and axles.  All that’s left are the drive lines, rear brakes, and paint.  Totally cool, concerning I have only $1280 into it.  Not bad for a virtually new vehicle.

     Does this mean I have to go back to work?  Building engines is something I can do, I’ve done three including mine.  But I’d rather be preaching!  Maybe I can do both.  I want to take the Gospel to the little off the beaten path places no one goes.  If Channel 6’s Ray Sommers can putter around Eastern Oregon in a Model T Ford, I can get the Gospel out there in my Chevy LUV 4x4!  I mean, “Why not?”  The next step also is to be able to READ THE WORD ON THE STREET!  Something that I’ve wanted to do too, just as much as driving.Praise the Lord!  Thanks so much for your prayers!  THEY WORKED and are still working!

Shalom,
 Marty

Addendum to Healing Testimony (added June 4, 2003)

     Within six months of receiving my drivers’ permit I noticed something change again in my vision. But this time it wasn’t good, I was starting to see lights double, and objects weren’t as clear as before. In October of 2002 I found out I had a cataract in my good (left) eye. The surgeon who discovered it found it during a disability review. I was hoping to receive a clean bill of health so to speak to get off of Social Security. Things didn’t go as planned. I quit driving for obvious reasons earlier in the summer. I turned in my permit the following spring when it expired. The surgeon told me when things get unbearable; it was time come in for surgery.

     Within a year of his findings I couldn’t walk down a sidewalk at night, nor could I even see faces from three feet away. I was getting pretty scared, but I kept the faith that God would work this out. I had gotten too far and have too much at stake to lose it all to a cataract. So in November of last year I went back to see my doctor and he scheduled surgery for me and discussed the risks and the rewards. He said the outcome should be good, and I may be able to drive again and go back to work. So, at 7:30 AM on December 4th, my little sister took me to Providence hospital. My father, pastor, Ron, and my nephew were there with me in the waiting room. At 9:45 I was prepped and at 10:00 I was in surgery. Twenty minutes later I was out the door headed for the parking lot.

     The operation was so easy it was laughable. A few quick buzzing sounds from a machine, a few little pokes with an instrument, and before I knew it the implant was in. Everybody involved did a first class job, which erased all the bad memories of the last operation I had. Within six hours I could remove the eye guard and I could see, well. Praise the Lord. Within 24 hours I was at a blurry 20/100 and at the end of three months in March, I was knocking off letters at the 20/80 line without correction! I received a new pair of “normal” glasses to clean up the distance vision and I’m reckoning I’m around 20/60. I don’t know since I did have an infection from a suture that irritated things a bit. I had it removed in late May of 2003 and things are settling down now. I’ve since moved to St. Helens and am waiting, and praying for continued healing. Praise Jesus. Stay tuned, no doubt there is more to come.

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