Brandon Schubert

My wife started dialysis today. Not even a full dose, this was training, where they do a little bit to see how you react, see how your body can handle it, etc. My wife is the strongest person I've ever met, way stronger than me. Most people are enamored by my strength from the the things I've been through, go through daily with my spine damage & all. So understand, me saying she is WAY stronger than me, is neither hyperbole, nor undeserved. She is. That said... Today was very rough on her. Didn't take too long and she was throwing up no less than 6 times, a LOT, even though she hadn't eaten nor drank anything in a day. Her blood pressure went from hypertensive crisis of 145/112 to vasovagal bouts of low blood pressures of 105/56, with a resting heartrate fluctuating between 100bpm & 50bpm... Her insides feel like they've been torn apart, hundreds of knives slashing at her stomach, pelvis, and as she said, period cramping pain, only amplified one hundredfold, easily. I've only ever seen her in this kind of pain once before... Years ago when she had gout attacks (related directly to the rapidly reducing kidney function) that were so bad, I had to push her to the bathroom and back to the couch on an office chair. She could barely have a sheet on her, even though she was freezing, because of the excruciating pain the weight / sense of touch would cause combined with the gout. This was worse. I know because, like me, she detaches entirely. You can see it in her eyes. Checked out, yet still functioning. Still there to help, and be helpful, but the soul, the energy steering the ship? It's sitting somewhere 100 yards back in the darkness, alone. I really don't like it when she has to go there, but I understand. I held her hand. I prayed for her. I told her it'd be okay. I asked what she needed. If she needed or wanted anything, many times. All day. My useless cycling attempts at helping her. Fruitless. The Dialysis excretion was cloudier than the nurse has ever seen, in years of doing this. They're having it cultured over night to rule out insurance... A lot of it was fibrin (scar tissue)... A callsign for all the misfolded umod proteins that have been curbstomping her kidneys for years... Fibrin starts as clouds in the fluid, quickly it coagulates into off-white colored jellyfish looking globs... It'd be need if it weren't so clear a sign of how sich she has been, and how sick she is. The dialysis is not the cure. In fact, it scares the shit out of me to be at this state. They tell you things like "we're gonna try to make it so you continue to pee, but you might stop because your kidneys stop processing toxins... but that's what dialysis is for... Your kidney stop functioning. entirely. We go back tomorrow. Listen. My wife needs a kidney. I'm too damaged to donate, they tell me. But if you're remotely healthy? ...and under 40 (the younger the better)... Then you can help to save my wife. If YOU volunteer to donate one of your kidneys to my wife? You get a free pass for life, a fast track ticket to the front of the line if you ever need a transplant. slick deal. If YOU volunteer to donate one of your kidneys to my wife? You become a hero. You literally save a life. Good news? You still have another kidney, it actually becomes somewhat of a super-kidney, many folks report feeling healthier with one (wild to me, but true). No idea how it works, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯... If YOU volunteer to donate one of your kidneys to my wife? You don't even need to be a match. So long as you have healthy kidneys - what they do? If you're not a match. They find someone who IS a match who has a living donor with a kidney that matches Erika's needs. Apparently there is quite a backlog of such cases. So not just one person's life gets saved. 2 people's lives get saved. All you have to do is volunteer. The doctors and hospital staff do the rest. They take pretty great care of you too. Pretty cool. There's a lot more benefits. To me, the biggest is you save my wife's life. My wife is super cool. You'd love her. Way nicer than me. As lovely and kind and wise as she is strong. Beautiful, stubborn, loving, empathetic, helpful, intentional... Just a whole bunch of the best traits God can put into a human being... And I'm saying this about her after 21 years together, and I still feel this way. Hell, I feel more deeply for her now than I did when I proposed just a few weeks into dating. They say, IYKYK. I knew. Anyway. If you have 2 kidneys, and don't mind becoming a hero? Please let me know. I can't bare the thought of my wife suffering through this for longer than she has to. I know she can. I don't want her to. She doesn't deserve it. If I could I'd take every ounce of pain and suffering she's going through, and take it on ten-fold, if it meant she could avoid it. Anyway. Yeah. If you like... -don't- have 2 kidneys, or uhm, -don't- like helping amazing people, or, uh... -don't- have interest in being a hero? Then, maybe you could talk to some people in your life who might be down for all this? Anyways. I need to get sleep so I can show up, and be present, and stay strong for my wife tomorrow. Please pray for her. Pray for us. But really, pray for her. For comfort. For healing, For feeling better. For finding a donor, and getting the successful transplant surgery as soon as God sees good. Thanks.