10/16/2026
Please share!
Hey friends and acquaintances, I would like to bring your attention to something that I have not shared widely before today.
In late 2024 I became very sick. At the time we had no clue what was going on. After some time in the hospital it was determined that I was in End Stage Renal Failure.
The hospital stay is a long story but my heart, lungs, and kidneys were going into failure at a rapid rate. This lead to gastroparesis requiring me to be fed nutrition through a port in my abdomen as well. Before the medical staff figured things out, my body was down to 94 lbs. In the process, I also lost my mobility for almost a year and had to learn to walk again. After some time on tube feeding my stomach, my heart and lungs bounced back. My kidneys never did though and I require nightly dialysis treatments at home. Eve, my wonderful wife, has been rock steady in taking care of my treatment needs.
Since early 2026, I healed enough to pursue being evaluated for kidney transplant at four different centers. These evaluations are for a deceased donor kidney. So far, I am officially on the transplant list at Barnes Jewish hospital in St. Louis. UAMS (Little Rock), Baylor (Dallas), and Vanderbilt (Nashville) should soon follow.
It's been stressed to me that my best chances at longevity are finding what is called a living donor. This is when someone donates one of their two kidneys (their spare). A live donor would greatly improve my chances of only needing one transplant in my lifetime as well. Unlike in times past, a living donor does not necessarily need to be a blood-type match. There are now what are called paired exchanges that help find a match. Please consider if being a living donor is right for you. Your medical expenses would be paid by my health insurance.
https://apps.uams.edu/LivingDonor/prescreen
If it is not right for you to be a living donor, then please share this as widely as you can. You never know who this might reach. Stay tuned for more and possible fundraisers to help with my medical related expenses not covered by insurance.