The fact that Lyndon Baty survived his first year was a miracle.
His parents were grateful. He was happy to be alive, but he was also incredibly lonely.
Lyndon has a rare form of poly-cystic kidney disease, which means that even if he catches a common cold, he could die.
For the first 7 years of his life, he was kept at home with no exposure to other kids, except his brothers. He was a very sick little boy.
Then he was given a life changing kidney donation which enabled him to go to school for the first time.
Far from being intimidated, he made friends quickly and embraced his new life with utter fearlessness.
But a few years later, his health took a serious blow when his body began to reject the donated kidney. Once again he was house-bound and grew depressed. He struggled to get out of bed in the morning and missed his friends badly. Lyndon was on dialysis for 10 hours a day and lost a lot of weight. He felt hopeless.
“I had no social interaction with anybody,” he told NBC. “I had no friends to talk to, nobody to be there for me.”
Then he was given a robot.
Roomba, by the company iRobot, is a shiny white box on wheels. It has a screen and a camera and the ability to upload and download data. Roomba lives at Lyndon’s high school, Knox City, in Texas, and Lyndon operates the robot remotely.
On his first day of school, he logged on to find his whole school staring at his face via the screen. After a long, silent moment, one of his friends, whom he hadn’t seen for months, hugged the robot and said:
"Lyndon, I've missed you so much!"
Roomba has changed Lyndon’s life. He navigates the robot to class and can now hang out with his buddies, go to lectures with his classmates and even ask out girls via his roving robot.
“It’s the most wonderful thing that’s happened to me since my transplant,” he told TODAY. “It’s like being there. I feel like I’m at school. I keep saying it’s like being in two places at the same time.”
He chooses to wear just a t-shirt and boxer shorts because people can only see him from the waist up, and why not? And sometimes he pretends to be listening in class but is really watching ESPN.
Lyndon has been to a couple of high school proms in person, despite the health risks. His mum, Sheri, strives to make his life as social as possible.
The prom was a gamble, but one they all decided was worthwhile. He had to drive straight to the hospital in Dallas immediately afterwards to treat a nasty infection, but didn’t let that stop him from wearing a tux and walking his date down the red carpet. "We just told him, 'You tell us when you have to go,'" Sheri says. "We wanted him to have the experience and say he went to prom."
What does the future hold for Lyndon?
He is applying to colleges, where he hopes he can operate Roomba remotely as he can in high school and dreams for a life with less health dramas and more real life interactions.
Listen to more of his amazing story in his own words on the Snap Judgement podcast.
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