Michael Hise hobbled into his living room, his left hand sliding along the kitchen counter, guiding his movement.
A large gash showed on his neck, blood still trickling out. He couldn’t find one of his fresh razors while shaving that afternoon, instead grabbing a dull, useless blade.
Hise, 53, lost his vision when he was just 19 and the lower half of his left leg when he was 50. Diabetes is to blame.
Some might shut down when facing similar hardships, but it only makes the 25-year Oak Park resident fight harder. Hise takes the train downtown each day to his full-time job as a software engineer. He lives alone, preparing his own meals, paying bills and shopping for groceries on his own.
“He’s got a lot of tenacity. Sometimes when people lose their vision as adults or teenagers, they kind of go into a shell,” said Maryanne Bartkowski, 59, a 25-year friend who is also blind. “When he lost his vision I think he made a determination that he was going to do it on his own and he stuck to it.”
“Michael has an incredible drive to live a normal life just like any healthy person does,” said Anita Lopez, 41, a 13-year co-worker.
“To me, Mike is an example of hope for people, that there is a way to live with the problems you have,” said Jim Dickert, a co-worker who has known Hise for a few years. “The tremendous difficulty he’s under and you wouldn’t know it. He tries to keep as normal as he possibly can.”
Hise keeps striving, but he needs a new kidney and pancreas before his condition worsens.
Hise first discovered he had diabetes at age 4, when hospitalized after slipping into a diabetic coma. He is afflicted with Type 2 diabetes-causing his body to not produce enough insulin needed to use glucose, a primary source of energy, according to the American Diabetes Association.
In the 1950s, it was far more difficult to check blood sugar. Five or six times a day, Hise had to take a urine sample, put it in a test tube and put droplets in it. Today, an electronic device attached to his belt monitors his blood sugar and injects insulin when it’s too high.
When he was 19 and in college, Hise’s vision started to blur before he completely went blind. His retinas would hemorrhage, leaving blood fading up and down over his eyes, which Hise said looked like spider webs.
“You weren’t really sure what was going to happen to you next,” he said of the uncertain time.
Unlike many blind people, Hise viewed color at one time, so despite losing his vision, he can picture what people mean when they talk about colors.
After losing his vision, Hise utilized the Illinois Visually Handicapped Institute and other agencies to learn how to use a walking stick, read braille and touch-type. Eventually he obtained a bachelor’s degree in computer management.
In 2004, Hise stubbed a toe on his left foot. A sore formed, and diabetes-related circulatory problems kept the wound from healing properly. He had the toe removed, but the pain persisted, so he had his left leg amputated under the knee.
Hise still walks with the help of a prosthetic leg.
“I’m very proud of Mike because he’s been a diabetic since age 4, and he never let that interfere with anything he ever wanted to do,” said his mother Patricia Paddock. “Mike’s managed his disease and he’s fought it every step of the way.”
Today, Hise lives alone in a fourth floor condominium on the 200 block of south Maple Street. He wakes up around 4:30 a.m. each day and walks, alone, to the Harlem Green Line station to travel to his job downtown at Blue Cross Blue Shield.
He does the majority of his work on a computer with the help of a program called Window-Eyes. The software reads every motion and every file on the computer aloud.
Hise pays his bills with the help of a document scanner and walks to the Certified grocery store on Lake Street when he needs something.
He used to ski and play baseball, but had to give them up after losing his leg.
“I’ve always strived to be independent,” he said. “It gives me a feeling that I’m just as good as the next person.”
Hise is on a waiting list for kidney and pancreas transplants and will likely have to wait at least a year. He has an unusual blood type, O negative, which complicates the process. Doctors believe a pancreas transplant will rid Hise of diabetes.
“I’m just on pins and needles every time I see the kidney doctor,” he said of the long wait. “I find myself having to go to the hospital a lot more than I used to.”
Independence is vital to Hise, perhaps at the cost of personal relationships. He was married on two previous occasions and has two sons, but says he doesn’t have a lot of contact with his family.
“It’s a consequence of being independent,” he said “I’ve proven that I can do things on my own, I strive to do that, but, as a consequence, maybe I don’t have the closeness to my family that I would if I was less independent. It’s all what you strive for in your lifetime. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing in my particular case, but I like my life the way it is.”