I'm Sarah Saunders. I went blind four years ago.
I am Melody Steyn and I went blind 10 years ago.
Beat you.
They're the best friends who have never seen
each other. After both losing their sight from
complications arising from type 1 diabetes,
their worlds changed forever. But thanks to a
chance meeting, they're now inseparable.
We joined a group at the Blind Foundation
for young mums with kids who are blind
and we were the only two.
The only two in town. Yeah, the only two in town.
We have so much in common, sort of on the surface with the diabetes and the blindness,
and there's a real sort of deeper understanding.
So if you're somewhere and you've done something
or you're lost on the boardwalk or you're physically stuck in your wetsuit,
and that has happened.
More than once.
There is somebody there that just gets it.
Their lives had barely begun when they received their diagnosis.
I was diagnosed as a diabetic when I was
first year of college, so I was about 12 or 13
which essentially led up to me losing my sight in 2017.
It was pretty quick. I had some bleeds behind
the eye, had some operations to try and fix it and all that,
but yeah I essentially got told that this is it, this is as good as it's going to get.
I was 32.
I was diagnosed with diabetes when I
was six years old. Going blind happened for me
much later in life. I was 28-29. I was pregnant with
my child and I was blind.
Melody was raised by the ocean in South Africa while Sarah grew up in Tauranga.
Both struggled to comprehend their new reality at first.
To get used to going around with my cane in Africa, where I come from, the town that I
lived when I went blind, I would never put myself in a situation where I looked vulnerable and that
white cane, everybody can see I'm vulnerable. I had a huge mental block about being out.
It felt like the world had ended. That there was just blackness.
I was very, very depressed for a long time.
I remember deciding that I was going to take my children to school.
That I was going to walk them and I was going to learn. Just that decision I think, almost,
it still kind of takes my breath away but I did it. And when I did, I felt like I was alive again.
On your marks, get set, go.
The first person to teach me how to use a cane. She just told me that this is not the end,
this is the beginning. There is so much you can do. I was made to join a small group at the
Blind Foundation where I met an amazing woman my age, also a diabetic and she was pregnant at the
time and raising a small child and I just thought "well if she can do stuff then so can I".
After meeting each other and becoming friends, their outlooks on life slowly began to change.
It was a relief that I wasn't alone. It wasn't just me. There's somebody else
that I can talk to and will actually genuinely understand what I'm going through.
Ever since then it's been game on for the friends who train regularly to aid their recovery.
Sarah and Mel, we don't treat them like
blind girls. To me they're athletes, we treat
them like athletes as you do with everybody.
So they, their focal point is to get fit.
They came to me based on the fact that they wanted to get strong and do something different,
more than just running. They've got a few competitions and they're pretty driven with
what they want to do so we're here to just help their process along.
Melody was hesitant to get back on the surfboard for
the first time since going blind, but her new friend convinced her.
I said "no way".
I said "I'll come with you, I will sit on the beach".
I didn't think I could and not only that, I didn't want to because I thought when I
got out there and I couldn't do it, that would ruin my memories of when I could.
They did not let me sit on the beach and watch. They got me in a wetsuit, they got me in the water
and I was no good, I was no good but I had fun. Yeah.
Sarah had never surfed before she went blind but says it would have been harder if she had.
I'm learning from scratch you know. I am learning to do it without eyesight so I
don't have that preconception of "right I must look for this, I must do this", it's all done
through feel and you know, I can feel the water moving past my fingers, I can stand up now.
It's almost like two completely different things, surfing with your eyes and surfing without them.
I feel surfing now is a lot harder just because I used to watch everything, the swell, the waves.
Organisations such as Parafed and Achilles have been pivotal
in helping them come to terms with their new life.
Getting out and trying new things has been beneficial to their mental health too.
I've been living at the beach for, you know 15 years and I didn't go in as when I could
see it's like, well why not give it a go now, you know. I can't see the sea creatures that
scared me before. I can't see the seaweed and stuff like that so I'll just have a go. I'll
see what it's like. And it turned out that I really liked being in the water and the waves.
Now that I'm doing it, I sort of think "why didn't I do this before", it's so much fun.
I try not to get too upset about this but I waited so long that it almost meant that
I wasn't going to try new things. It means that my brain was shifting to a place where
this is your life now and this is it, you have to try because
because I found that 100% of the time you actually can.
And ultimately, just like everybody else these women just want to have fun.
I don't think we have any plans to take over the
world. It's pretty hard when you can't even drive to the bus stop.
I think we want to be happy.
Yeah. I think we're like everybody, we just, we want to be happy.
We want to enjoy life where we can. And that's a pretty good point, like we are just people,
just like every other surfer out on the on the waves. We're just there to enjoy it.