"Mike May spent his life crashing through.

Blinded at age three, he defied expectations by breaking world records in downhill speed skiing, joining the CIA, and becoming a successful inventor, entrepreneur and family man.

May had never yearned for vision. Then, in 1999, a chance encounter brought startling news: a revolutionary stem cell transplant surgery could restore his vision. It would allow him to drive, to read and to see his children's faces. He began to contemplate an astonishing new world: Would music still sound the same? Would sex be different? Would he recognise himself in the mirror? Would his marriage survive? Would he still be Mike May?

The procedure was filled with risks, some of them deadly, others beyond May's wildest dreams. And even if the surgery worked, history was against him. Fewer than twenty cases were known throughout history where a person had gained vision after a lifetime of blindness. And in each of those cases, people suffered from desperate consequences we can scarcely imagine.

There were countless reasons for May to refuse vision. He could think of only a single reason to go forward. Whatever his decision, he knew it would change his life.

Crashing Through is a journey of suspense, daring, romance, and insight into the mysteries of vision and the brain. Robert Kurson gives readers a fascinating account of one man's choice to explore what it means to see"”and to truly live.” (From the back cover of the book.)

First, lets talk about stem cells as mentioned in this book. These corneal epithelial stem cells already exist in a ring around the cornea. These cells create daughter cells which wash across the cornea and keep it healthy. In May’s case these cells had been destroyed in early childhood.  The doctor had to remove “a ring of tissue from around the donor’s cornea - a ring that contained the stem cells - and place it around May’s own cornea”. The transplant does not produce vision by itself. There would be a wait of three to four months before the eye was ready to receive a full cornea transplant in another operation.

May was blinded at age three due to a chemical explosion. His mother allowed him to do whatever he wanted so he was always bruised and battered because he was constantly running into things. 

He once built an 80-foot radio tower in his home backyard. His mother had to leave the house for a little while as he did this. She could not bear to watch him, but she did not stop him.

He rode a motor bike with a friend and one day also managed to drive a car a little way. May's hearing was excellent, so he would stop and listen for oncoming traffic.

In his forties May came across a doctor who had hopes that with a special operation he might be able to see. May had never considered this a necessity. One eye had been completely destroyed and replaced with an artificial one years ago. The other eye was still in situ though severely damaged. The doctor explained the procedure, and also the drugs he would have to take and the dangers that went along with them.

He had both operations and in the doctor’s surgery he was asked if he could see anything. Yes he could. But quite often he did not know what it was that he was looking at.

Back at his own home he got to know his sons. He discovered that one of them had freckles.
His wife and sons all had blonde hair, and he was amazed to see how many different shades of blonde there could be. Even his dog was a shade of blonde, and his mother's hair was white. The boys showed him a painting but although he could see the colour yellow he did not know what the object was. Walking the boys to school one day he bent down to a yellowish shape and wondered what it was. When he touched it he knew it was a flower. He had to learn to see all over again. He could see an object but not recognise what it was until he ran his hands over it.

And it reminded me of the story in the Bible where Jesus healed the blind man.

“When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?”  He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” Mark 8:24. This man also did not immediately recognise what it was he was looking at. He had to learn again, although Jesus hastened the process by the laying on of hands again.

May never gave up. He kept on doing what he could. If there was something he wanted to do and it seemed possible he said to himself: “There has to be a way”. Is that what Paul meant when he said: ” I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”
(2 Titus 4:7)? Paul kept on fighting the good fight.

Finding a way to do things, learning to see things by touching them and handling them " isn’t that the way a child learns to see? We often assume that a baby knows what it is looking at. Why do they put everything in their mouths? To know what the object feels like, looks like, and tastes like.

And that is how God made us. We have to experience everything before we can use it. Even the bad things that happen in our life God can use to help us grow. Everything that has happened to us in our lives has made us what we are today. God planned it that way. “God intended it for good” (Genesis 50:20).

The book Crashing Through is an amazing story of one man’s life and persistence. It is also an amazing story of how our bodies are put together - how God created us. God knows even the finest detail and planned for them to be so.