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A New Life - Doug's story

A New Life - Doug's story


Today we are pleased to be able to share about Doug Lynch, a resident of our Te Orewai community. After Doug’s life was temporarily put on hold after the discovery of a rare genetic disorder, he is thriving living independently and is enjoying life more than ever.

Doug grew up around New Zealand, spending most of his life in Christchurch, where he went on to gain a degree in Mathematics. With this, Doug entered teaching and did so for ten years, before his health suddenly began to deteriorate. Doug was living in South Africa at the time and returned home to New Zealand to figure out what was going on with his health. Here, he discovered that he had wolfram syndrome – an extremely rare genetic disorder that only eight people have in the entire country.

Wolfram syndrome can have a number of effects on the body. For Doug, this involved deteriorating eyesight, complete colorblindness, balance issues, depression, bladder and kidney issues, and other issues that made work impossible to maintain. It has been fifteen years since Doug’s diagnosis, and for the majority of this time, he lived with his parents. Deciding it was time to find more independence, Doug found a home in Te Orewai, where he has lived for the past two years.

“It's like a new life,” says Doug. “It was so quiet, my life, when I was living with my parents. Now I'm just here and I'm a completely new person. It's been absolutely fantastic.”

While his condition began to restrict parts of life for Doug, he found living at Te Orewai opens up many new opportunities. He spends time out and about, down at Richmond Club playing Euchre, at Step Ahead events, and out for walks, which he tries to do every day.

“I’ve really apricated the fact that they trying to encourage us to communicate and get on with each other, and I'm loving that. I've built so many great relationships with people here.”

Doug enjoys cooking and cooks his meals twice a week. Outside of this, there is a Sunday party meal each week, which many of the Te Orewai residents attend. Doug enjoys spending time with the group, playing Monopoly, and engaging with the staff.

"Doug is proactive, he thinks ‘outside the box’ and can improvise when the arises,” say staff at Te Orewai. “He Has a very good sense of humour and a very youthful spirit."

Perhaps Doug’s greatest life passion is art. Since his diagnosis, he has invested much time into his paintings. He loves drawing people, pop culture like Star Wars, and especially loves paining cats. One cat that gets a lot of portraits is Gary, who lives at Te Orewai. With the loss of his colour vision, Doug enjoys painting in grayscale. Although, that doesn’t mean he can no longer work with colour.

“It's very interesting because I started off life and I could see colours. It wasn't until my 30s that I lost all my colour vision. Now I'm basically living in a grey blurry world, but I can remember what colour things were. If somebody can tell me, hey, look that's red paint, then I know to put it in the top strand of the rainbow.”

Recently, Doug has loved painting stones, and has enjoyed placing them around the gardens at Te Orewai for those with a keen eye!

“I also enjoy painting portraits of those with wolfram syndrome around the world. I get in contact with them, ask for their permission. Then once I finish the painting, I send it to them.”

You may have seen some of Doug’s artwork at LFBIT, including our most recent Christmas Fete! Doug has plenty of paintings ready to go for the future, so be sure to check them out if you get the chance!

Thank you again for sharing your story with us, Doug! We are looking forward to seeing new artwork, and where your journey takes you!