Event Update - LoweDown Hoedown - 02.17.2013

It took me some time to formulate how to express my thankfulness for the people God has put into my life and I will do my best to get the message across; if I forget anything and or anybody, I give you permission to knock me on the head.

As soon as the news came across that I had FSGS and Renal Failure, and that this would cause me to be out of work for quite some time, a very good friend of ours, Heather, scrambled into motion and put together a benefit event in my honor; we called it the “LoweDown Hoedown”. In just two weeks time she, with the help of our friends and family, were able to find McKee Ranch, get a jumper at a discount, reduced rate Face Painter, donated baked goods, contact a multitude of radio stations and news stations, do radio interviews, post on Craig list, face book, make posters and fliers, decorations, get two food trucks to come, Melteez and The Spot and all the while managing their everyday lives with their families. Now as far as I know, the event went off without a hitch, Heather and the rest of our friends and family really took care of everything; I wouldn’t know since most of my day was spent trying to tough it out through the joint pain and nausea that was lingering from a tough Saturday and I was barely managing to stand at points throughout the day. Everybody involved that was aforementioned as well as anybody that I have missed and/or didn’t know about was amazing to say the least.

We had put on a couple of garage sales, as you would know if you had been paying attention to my “Events” pages ;), and the weather was horrendous on those events the previous weeks; we were somewhat worried this would turn out somewhat similar. We were dead wrong, the weather was perfect; it had just broken into the 70’s, there was a slight breeze that was strong enough to keep you cool although never kicked up any dust. The Ranch was quite a little gem as well, tucked in between the 15 freeway and the Silverton Casino, it was so close enough to Vegas you would think it would have been a miserable place to visit, on the contrary, it was like you had driven miles out into the desert to go to a horse ranch and ride away your pains; it was quite a pleasant surprise. With the horses, goat, sheep, ponies, donkeys, chickens and everything else, it was a perfect little ranch that was packed with tons of fun!!

Max and Christine, the Owners and Operators of McKee Ranch were more then generous in the use of their personal property for our event; it was basically donated for our cause with minimal fees and near complete freedom to explore wherever we please. The food trucks, Melteez and The Spot both donated their time to come out and donated a portion of their proceeds as well; I couldn’t explain in words how great both of their foods were; you need to eat it yourself to understand. Channel 13 News put our event on the 13 things to do during the weekend segment and Fox 5 put it on their website as well. Also, Fox 5 Vegas even stopped by and did some interviews and played a 2 minute spot on the 10 o’clock news that night; although I missed it, it was way cool to know we were on TV. A few radio stations, 95.5, 97.5, 100.5, and 102.7 all put the event on their page and announced it during their morning show. 

  

We also had a raffle that went off pretty well with some pretty good items in it as well. There was a Family Four Pack to Sea World donated by 95.5, 102.7 donated a basket with a bunch of autographed cds, guitar picks and a Dierks Bentley Poster. Additionally, my wonderful sister in-law was able to get an hour golf lesson and greens fees for four at Rhodes Ranch Golf Club donated. Jacque from Indian Springs Towing donated her time, as well as a digital camera and a Razor Scooter. Our friend Jamie, who put on the garage sales for us, got a $30 salon gift certificate as well as 2 tickets to go see Divas @ the Rio donated; we won the Divas tickets, but with my energy levels, we gave them back so that somebody else could enjoy them. I saved the best one for last, you may not think so, but this is my blog and what I says goes, a gift certificate to Buffalo Wild Wings for 50 free wings; although I probably shouldn’t be eating them due to the sodium and whatever else might kill me, I love food and that hasn’t changed. 

I did my best to find links to a majority of the places that sponsored their time, resources and/or items, if i knew which businesses did so; please feel free to check out the links and show these people some love, I know I will whenever i can. 

Event Update - Benefit Garage Sale(s) - 02.09-10.2013

In my many years of experience, most people dread having to put together a garage sale, they only put it together when they are filled to the brim with stuff and need to make space for new stuff. Not Bill and Jamie, they volunteered to put on a garage sale with the proceeds going to benefit my family. They didn’t just put on a half-hearted attempt of a garage sale, they took on donations that filled their garage, had friends over to make baked goods and signs, posted on Craig list and face book and even went out picking up donations from people all around Las Vegas. These two, along with some good friends, really put on a good sale to help out our family; I couldn’t be more thankful to have them in our lives and owe them a huge deal.

Enough of the mushy, gushy thankfulness, lets get on with some of the details of the garage sale. The weather was actually quite terrible; I would say it was in the 50 degree weather, which wouldn’t be so bad, except there was 20+ MPH winds on both days and rarely any sun to be had, it was miserable. With the temperature, my 0% body fat and the fact that I wasn’t feeling well those days, it was really a struggle for me to sit around; I know, it sounds bad, but it’s true. Saturday was okay, for me I mean; I was able to stick it out the entire day, with two jackets on, curled up on one of the couches being sold. Sunday was quite the opposite, at best I was in rough shape, I spent almost the entire day sleeping; I felt bad for doing it while everyone else suffered.

All in all it went really well, even with the horrendous weather; we had made almost $700 from the garage sale(s) and still have more stuff to sell. We had/have televisions, lots of clothes, a weight bench, board games, game systems, movies, couches, chairs, power sports equipment, sports equipment, appliances; I don’t think I could list all of the stuff we had/have and with a majority of it being donated, they were priced so low some people paid extra to help out.

 

Some of the people that came out were really great, some even came out just because it was a benefit for me, I had people hugging, talking and praying for me that I didn’t even know; it was a really blessing. Bill and Jamie, Amy, Heather, Jamye, Ana and Christa have all been great; not only during the garage sale events, but during this whole debacle, I couldn’t express my gratitude enough for these people. 

My Diagnosis - And The Hits Just Keep On Coming...

02.06.2013  - And the Hits Just Keep on Coming

So I left you off with a little snippet of what my Mom has been through, and a teaser of some drama. So here it goes. It was the week of November 14th-18th, the biggest Karting race in North America, maybe even the Americas in general...SKUSA SuperNationals hosted at The Rio, here in Las Vegas. My Mom had been visiting for a week prior and would be leaving shortly afterwards; the rest of my side of the family was coming in just for the race as my brother would be competing. Some of you may understand, being that most of you are close racing friends, others may pickup on it due to other sports or hobbies that your family had been engulfed in, just how life just changes gears when something like this is going on. I took vacation time out of work and even packed a bag so I could stay at the hotel, even though I lived 15 minutes away from the track; I had racing on the brain and nothing else. Mom stayed at my house, with her newest favorite member of the family, Mason; what grandma in their right mind would want to stay away from such a wonderful child. She would drive down with my wife or her sister, my Aunt Mary, and hang out at the track almost daily; she still showed no signs of slowing.

Everything was hunky-dory, as she would say, until Sunday, or "Super Sunday!" as it was known at the track. My wife, who was sleeping upstairs in our bedroom, had received a call from my Mom downstairs in the guest room calling for help as she couldn't feel the right side of her body and couldn't get out of bed. Mom ended up at Valley Hospital and was being tested for strokes and brain tumors. All of this was happening without my or my younger brother knowing; she didn't want to clutter our concentration for the big race, like I said in my last post, she was always thinking of others. After the race was over, Dad, who knew all along, seemed rushed to get everything packed up and going; he wanted to get to the hospital and we didn't understand the rush. When the question arose as to why we HAD to go, he dropped the bomb on us; he didn't have too many details, besides her being there, so it actually didn't devastate us...yet. After arriving at the hospital and seeing Mom, it hurt; you never want to see anyone close to you in the hospital, especially your Mom...especially MY Mom. They were calling it a "mini-seizure" and that there was a tumor in her brain. The doctors here weren't very hopeful with her prognosis and were going to continue tests; my Mom just wanted to go home to City of Hope. During this entire episode, my Mom was still trying to make sure everybody was comfortable and apologizing for creating such a hassle; it was confusing to the nurses and doctors as to why she acted this way, but it was normal for us. To cut a long story short, she ended up being released, finally, and we were able to transport her back down to So-Cal. After being put on another treatment that was supposed to have a 10% chance of working, she was back to gardening, cleaning house, cooking, and even working for my Dad's electrical business; life went back to "normal" for her, she is a fighter.


Now lets scroll forward a month, to my debacle that I’ve dragged everybody into. I believe were back to the 18th of December, and not a creature was stirring; well actually a lot of creatures were, mostly nurses poking and prodding at me throughout the night; even the in-house insurance representative come by in the middle of this night to get my co-pay-yes, I know. You're probably asking what the point of my two stories about my Mom was, well, it will come more and more apparent as my story goes on; however, it begins to set it in today. This is the morning that I start to understand that I have a real issue going on; this is the morning that I meet Dr. Singh. He seemed like a very well mannered, smart and caring individual; I really liked him and it sucks in the future, because I accidentally got him through a paperwork mix-up. Although he had a solid character, and seemed to be very astute, he was also confused at the cause, and the severity of my condition. He couldn't figure out how a 27 year old, that appeared to be healthy on the outside, non-drug user, non-alcohol drinker could be burning through a liter of "bi-carb" every five hours and not show signs of any sort of recovery. He even re-asked me about my "street drug" usage, twice. He mentioned how my numbers were improved, but only marginally, and how I should be way ahead of the curve by now; I did a lot of nodding, considering the drugs I was on. Due to my sickness, well probably more-so my kidney issues, I was nauseous, severely achy, had cramps, the room was constantly spinning, my blood pressure (BP) was through the roof and my temperature was feverish. The upside is that I had Morphine, Percocet, or Prescription Strength Tylenol to help with the pain, and nausea meds for my stomach-I was set. Prior to leaving, Dr. Singh wanted to make sure I was informed as to where the testing might lead. None of the testing was invasive until he mentioned the Biopsy; that's when I took a lesson from my Mom and sucked it up and began to take this adventure real serious.  Although I was very out of it due to the aforementioned drugs, I was on the ball about keeping a big majority of my friends and family updated through text and Face book; I'm sure this was my way of distracting myself considering as I only had 2-1/2 channels to watch. Moments later, my breakfast shows up-French toast and eggs with some fruit on the side. Meals show up throughout the day, even if you request not to be fed. To my surprise, and I am sure everybody else's surprise that's reading this, the meal was actually good; I'd pay for it at a restaurant. Ok, let’s not get too crazy now. Even though I was looking forward to my hospital stay, at least three times a day, I had asked Christa to bring me something edible from the magical, mystical, outside world; In & Out was my request but that didn't happen until months later. Boy was it a good thing she brought me something because out of all the different choices of meals I could have throughout the day, french toast was the only one that the hospital couldn’t botch. 

It wouldn't be until around 7 pm that I would hear anything more from the doctors and this is when I met my General Physician. When she came in, she listened to my lungs and heart and squeezed my ankles, like every body else, and then gave me nearly the same spiel about my numbers not improving like they should be. I had gotten so used to hearing that my numbers were improving, just not like they should be; that the conversation almost literally played itself out before the doctor actually said the words; I was on hospital time now and there was nothing I could do about it.

All this time I had spent texting and FBing my ordeal to family and friends that wanted to hear updates; occasionally I received a phone call or text from friends that had heard about my ordeal and were concerned, I was really beginning to feel the love. However, now that I’m blogging about it you can read about it whenever you’d like, well really whenever I get around to finishing it up. This concludes today’s broadcast schedule, nevertheless there are other reads on the site and you can always check out the upcoming events page to see how you can help.

My DIagnosis - Admitting Your Kidneys Have Problems Is The First Step To Revcovery...Or So They Say

...Aaaaaaannnnnnnd we're back.

Where did I leave off? Oh yes, I had just received the news that I needed to be admitted into the hospital. I had already been sitting in the ER for quite some time now, I’d wager about four hours; remember that my phone was dead and I don’t know how to read one of those darn-fangled round things they hang on the wall. Soon there-after, something exciting happened; I got moved from a chair in the hallway, to a chair in the procedural room, which might as well have been in the hallway with the amount of foot traffic going through this room. To be honest, the room was way too-small, it was more of a closet that was turned into a patient IV center. In-fact, the cool thing about that is, I think they forgot that they stored pallets of saltine crackers in there and with my nausea I had hit the jackpot since saltines were the only thing I could really eat; keep that in mind because you never know how much you value something until you have kidney failure and everything changes. While I waited for a bed to come available on one of the floors, I sat in this room and snacked on saltines, took in 2 whole banana bags, gave 5 vials of blood, a urine test and a partridge in a pea…no wait, no partridges or pear trees. Apparently hospitals are busy places because I was here for another couple of hours, maybe you can help me out, but the little hand was near the 3 and the big hand was all the way at the top; not sure but I think it was 3 o’clock. By now, I had made the spousal phone call and informed her of my inevitable demise, or at least my admittance into the hospital; demise wasn't even playing in the back coffers of my brain yet. I also explained to her that I have no idea where I will be located when she gets off of work so there may be a slight scavenger hunt involved; she loves scavenger hunts, so she may just enjoy looking near and far for me. I had her go on one before I proposed to her but that’s really irrelevant to the story; although it may come up at a later date, but this show must go on.

Now I know, technically I’m not admitted in the hospital yet, I’m still in the ER and you were hoping to hear about my lavish room with all the quaint little amenities involved, well so was I, but I was stuck downstairs with armed guards walking around from the local prison; just as I thought the said guards were coming to take me in, I was moved again. No, not to a room upstairs but to a long hallway filled with little curtain rooms. This is where the real fun begins; during my short couple of hours in this room, I had given about another 25 vials of blood and six blood cultures; the blood cultures look like soy sauce bottles. I would venture to guess, based on some quick Google searching, that I had given about 2/3s a pint of blood for testing. For comparison, when you donate blood, you give a full pint and I don’t even think anybody wants my blood right now anyways; I have kidney problems remember, try not to forget again. Did I mention that they made me put on a dress? Yeah they did and it was cold, but I left my boxers on because I didn't want to be “that guy” walking down the hall. Don’t go telling anybody, but my wife had previously beaten some shrewdness into me since we got married; I use to change down well past my skivvies at the race track without cover prior to her.

Shortly after I had cured the shortage of blood in the local blood bank, I met with the ER Nephrologist (Kidney Doc) and he seems thoroughly perplexed as to why I was having the issues I was having. He seemed to be going through the standard initial questions and then paused a bit before asking the next one, “are you taking any ‘street drugs’?”. I gave him the answer that any responsible 27 year old father and husband should give, “nope, never have.”; he didn't seem to believe me and went on to explain that I will soon be moving to a room and that some additional tests will need to be taken. Alright, it seems fitting that if I did all the blood work, plus a urine test prior to seeing the doc, that I would have something to tease you with; well I don’t. I didn't ask for specific blood work numbers, because well, I wasn't on the ball with it yet. I did however ask him, and pretty much every nurse the even slightly peeked into my room about what they knew; no dice, the best answer I got was, “your room should be ready by now but you might have to wait a couple hours.” 

Shortly after my interrogation, I mean, consultation with the Neph., my lovely wife arrives. To my disappointment, Mason didn't come with her, he had just been dropped off with my sister in-law, Justine; she plays a good part in my entertainment value in the hospital in the future, which is pretty huge.
Okay, okay, back to the good stuff. Approximately 30-minutes later…A ROOM IS AVAILABLE!!!! If you didn't pick up on it, I was actually excited, not to be in the hospital with kidney problems, but to finally have a room and the rest of the world was already beginning to fade away and I didn't realize how far gone I would end up; neither did you, until you read that line, did you? 

On my way up I was trying to figure out what dis-configured  fully and completely deaf, bronchitis spewing, elderly roommate I was going to have, and then my transport started making small talk. This was a thorough relief, because it started with, “looks like you’re getting your own room, in the new building.” What a relief, because I was probably already going to have a hard enough time sleeping with everybody poking and prodding at me, much less dealing with a TV volume entirely too high and Captain Wheezy and Sneezy. After being dropped off by transport and getting settled into my single bed hospital suite equipped with private bath AND shower, enough room for another bed for guests; this actually happened later in my stay, I even had my own TV with 13 channels; 2 of which were Spanish, 2 were always covered in infomercials, 1 was the hospital info channel, and 1 was a live feed of the Las Vegas Courthouse; life was rough coming from 100’s of satellite channels with DVR. 

Lets scroll forward a bit; well only 30 minutes though. Dun, dun, dun…Christa’s parents arrive. I would have to say that at this moment in my kidney adventures, I began to really understand what the term “being Christ-like” actually meant; even though that previous paragraph doesn't sound like it, but that’s the point right? To give you and idea, my in-laws, Rick and Marie Jackson, live in Mesquite, Nevada, which is an hour outside of Las Vegas; they hopped in their car and drove down to come and see me in the hospital without question. Now you might think, what parents wouldn't do that? Well, technically they only adopted me into their lives, and it was probably against their wills since Christa was set on marrying me anyways; they will deny it but I know the truth. Oh, they know I’m kidding!!! At this point in the story we are all still hypothetically still in the dark about what is going on and for them to drive down merely because I was being admitted is still astonishing to me; that is one of the many reasons why they are so loved, by so many. More of their details will be revealed later, as they tend to stick around for quite some time during my little journey; this is quite significant because even they couldn't stand the hospital food. 

Now, I haven’t mentioned it because I assumed everybody reading this has had the flu and knows how it feels, and most of the time it felt like death, but I was just sick not dying…until now; apparently I was worse then sick and I was feeling it. Not to sound like I’m complaining, but I had a brand new cough that nobody could explain, my lower back was killing me, almost like my kidneys were trying to leave my body, and nausea would make me “do the Technicolor yawn” at the smell of anything thicker than air. According to the nurses on my floor that night, most kidney diseases don’t really show any symptoms until something sets it off. Well, the flu was trying to kill me and did something to really upset my kidneys, because I went from bad, to knocking at deaths door, overnight. One of the doctors that initially came in to introduce himself and do a quick exam, which always consisted of listening to my breathing and squeezing my ankles, we’ll get back to that, and was joking with Christa about putting Pine-Sol in my soup; I chuckled and then looked at my wife who had let the joke go completely over her head, which made me chuckle a little harder and boy did laughing hurt. After some more blood work, this will happen approximately every 2 hours, like clockwork, for my entire stay; I was taken downstairs to do an ultrasound of my kidneys. 

I was still in the, go-with-the-flow mode of thinking and really wasn't concerned with my condition or what may come of it; it would seem that nobody really knew what was wrong and I was just going to be flushed with more bags of sodium bi-carbonate until I was healthy again. Although, it seems that I couldn't care less about what is going on, it was actually quite the opposite, but I was able to keep my cool and handle it like a champ; all thanks to my Mom. My Mom, Susan; yes the same Susan I mentioned in my first post, has been battling breast cancer for well over five years now. She has had multiple surgeries, including a mastectomy, been through every type of chemo and radiation treatment that one of the leading cancer hospitals, City of Hope, has to offer and lost her hair on a few occasions. Nevertheless, she still walks with her head held high and a smile on her face, she has always done her best to cover her pain even though you can see its excruciating and, although obvious, she did really well at covering her weaknesses up. My Mom was always out to help everybody before getting cancer, and Stage-4 breast cancer wasn't going to stop her now. Make sure you take note, because this is really significant in my motivation to be as upbeat and forward thinking throughout my stay as I was; if she could go through everything she was going through and nary blink a I eye at it, what do I have to complain about?

Although you would normally look at that paragraph above and say that is a ton to go through, it’s not over. I saved a real doozie for you and it going to have to wait for my next post because I’m exhausted and life isn't so easy when you lose 32 lbs in the hospital after only weighing 142 when you were admitted. Don’t you get your panties, or boxers, or any sort of undergarment, if you’re wearing some, all in a bunch; I will still be doing my best to post and try to catch up to present time.