Jason Sheffield is fundraising
Jason's Fundraiser for The Living Bank
My name is Jason Sheffield and I want to share a little bit about myself, including my current situation and why supporting LivingBank.org is so important to me. Before I go on, I want to thank you in advance for reading my story and any support you can lend to this cause.
Just after High School, I joined the Iola Volunteer Fire Department (rural Grimes County, Texas) and served as a Firefighter for seven years, EMT for four, and Ambulance Driver for two. During that time, I also attended Texas A&M University studying Business Analysis and Blinn Junior College studying Fire Science. I also spent 3 months and graduated from TEEX Brayton Recruit Fire Academy, one of the top International Fire Schools in the world. While attending College, I also worked at a local Computer and Networking shop called Texas Computers and Networking Service, Inc. There I learned many of the Sales skills that I still use to this day. From there I moved on to a Telecom company called Econophone where I worked first as Help Desk, then Server Administration, then Network and Security Administration. After College, I joined a Network Security Company called AXENT Technologies as a Sales Engineer, which was then acquired by Symantec in 1999. After Joining AXENT, I married someone whom I had known since I was 15 years old. We now have 3 amazing kids, aged 18, 14, and 9 and have been married 21 years. From 2005 until 2011, I was very active in Cub and Boy Scouts as a local and district level leader. After working for Symantec for 12 years, I left to work for Q1 Labs, known for it’s QRadar SIEM product. Like AXENT, Q1 Labs was acquired by IBM a year later, and I ended up staying for around 4 years total.
It was while I was at IBM when I started having health issues. It started with having clots behind both knees somewhere around 2010. At the time, my youngest had just been born and at 2 months had RSV, a major respiratory illness that put him in the NICU in Houston. That day I had been holding him all day long as we went from our pediatrician to Texas Children’s Hospital downtown by ambulance. My back had been hurting all day, but my son was the priority. Once he was admitted into the NICU, my wife and I had to leave to travel to the other side of Houston to pick our other two children up from their grandparents, and as we were driving, my back hurt so bad that I had to stop at a hospital on the way. After receiving pain medication and a few scans, it was determined that I had suffered a kidney stone, and was then sent home. Later that week, I followed up with my physician and it was determined that I had very abnormal blood and kidney function results. This is when we determined that I had some form of kidney disease. It was also when I was first diagnosed with High Blood Pressure. My Father has struggled with Diabetes and Kidney Disease for decades, but all of his health issues had always been attributed to his Type 2 Diabetes. I did not have Diabetes at all, yet had the exact same kidney issues, this time at a much younger age than my father did. After a biopsy of my kidneys, it was determined that I had Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (or FSGS for short).
Think of the kidneys as an internal coffee filter. It works when it’s fresh and new and fully intact. My kidneys are like coffee filters that have tears in the fabric. Because of this, they can’t filter very well, and start to shut down. For me, the complete shutdown of my kidneys was gradual and took about nine to ten years to happen. During that time, my first set of doctors had me on extremely high doses of Prednisone, a common anti-inflammatory drug. Bad part about that is the number of side effects that it causes. I ended up gaining 70 pounds very quickly, and then lost all 70 pounds within two weeks when I was put on Lasix which helps you shed excess water. I was also a medically induced Diabetic, and dealt with rage and manic issues while I was on Prednisone. So, on top of dealing with failing kidneys, I also now had to learn how to deal with Diabetes as well. Since the 18 months of Prednisone use, I’ve also had arthritis form in my shoulders and hip, and had permanent retina damage occur. I still have to deal with the retina damage to this day, which my high blood pressure has made worse. I had also thought that my high blood pressure was the cause of my kidney issues, but I was assured by one of the best kidney transplant doctors in the world that FSGS is not caused by high blood pressure. Unfortunately for me, the cause is idiopathic, which, in layman's terms, means that doctors have no idea what the cause is. There were many days while working for Q1/IBM where I was so ill that I could barely make it out of bed. Despite my illness, I still managed to make 100% of my sales quota, and still made it to President’s club several times.
After leaving IBM in 2013, I joined a Cloud Security startup company called Netskope, which had only had around 70 employees at that time. Netskope has since grown to over 1100 employees globally now and it’s been an amazing journey watching the company grow while I am still dealing with my illness. From 2016 until now, I have been on the Board of Directors for our neighborhood swim team, and have acted as the Computer Manager for the last three years.
For most of the first part of 2019, I attempted to try to see if eating a Vegan diet would help my kidneys, but unbeknownst to me, the lack of animal protein was probably the worst thing I could have done to my body. Being a Vegan for ten months was very difficult, but in the end did not help my situation. When dealing with kidney issues, it’s very important to keep your blood pressure low, and to work with a good nutritionist that can help navigate the disease. Unfortunately for me, my kidneys completely failed in August of 2019 and forced me to go on dialysis. At that point, I was also put on the National Kidney Transplant list, which has an average waiting time of three to five years for someone with type A blood. At that point, I chose to do Peritoneal Dialysis (PD) at home, which in the end, also turned out to not work for me. My body was not able to remove the toxins that just normally build up in your body. The side effect of this was that I was retaining too much fluid, and was constantly driving my blood pressure too high. After being on high doses of six different high blood pressure medications, and my blood pressure remaining too high, I wound up in the emergency room, at the hospital, first for pneumonia, and then a week later, being transported by ambulance for breathing difficulty and uncontrolled blood pressure that was 212/140. At that level, you can easily have a stroke or a heart attack. All of this happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, which made the two hospital stays very nerve racking. I ended up having a Doppler scan of my heart while in the hospital, and was told that I only had 42% function in one of the chambers of my heart, and that I was now in heart failure. Of course, that news caused me to panic even more than before. During the ten day ICU/Hospital stay, I was switched over to hemodialysis and went through five sessions of dialysis where they ended up pulling a total of 10.2 liters of fluid off of me, or roughly 20 pounds of liquid. Once that happened, my blood pressure dropped down to around 130/70, or a more normal range, I noticed that I could breathe much easier than before, and that my heart had now returned to a more normal 50-55% function of the chamber. I’ve since been able to keep my blood pressure in a more normal range, but it means that I have to visit a dialysis clinic every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for 5 hours each day. It’s been a bit of an adjustment, but I’m feeling much better than I was while attempting to do home peritoneal dialysis.
I often get asked how I’m coping with all of these or if I’m depressed or frustrated. Truth of the matter is that I’ve managed to maintain a good attitude through all of this because the alternative doesn’t do anyone any good! I can only take one day at a time and I think attitude is a huge component of the healing process.
I’m supporting LivingBank.org because they are doing great work on behalf of individuals in desperate need of a transplant. There are so many people who are in need and far worse off than me. I hope you can help support LivingBank.org and spread the word. I hope that my story has provided a glimpse into the world of Kidney Disease and if you’re someone facing similar issues, please reach out and say hello. We can get through this.
Just after High School, I joined the Iola Volunteer Fire Department (rural Grimes County, Texas) and served as a Firefighter for seven years, EMT for four, and Ambulance Driver for two. During that time, I also attended Texas A&M University studying Business Analysis and Blinn Junior College studying Fire Science. I also spent 3 months and graduated from TEEX Brayton Recruit Fire Academy, one of the top International Fire Schools in the world. While attending College, I also worked at a local Computer and Networking shop called Texas Computers and Networking Service, Inc. There I learned many of the Sales skills that I still use to this day. From there I moved on to a Telecom company called Econophone where I worked first as Help Desk, then Server Administration, then Network and Security Administration. After College, I joined a Network Security Company called AXENT Technologies as a Sales Engineer, which was then acquired by Symantec in 1999. After Joining AXENT, I married someone whom I had known since I was 15 years old. We now have 3 amazing kids, aged 18, 14, and 9 and have been married 21 years. From 2005 until 2011, I was very active in Cub and Boy Scouts as a local and district level leader. After working for Symantec for 12 years, I left to work for Q1 Labs, known for it’s QRadar SIEM product. Like AXENT, Q1 Labs was acquired by IBM a year later, and I ended up staying for around 4 years total.
It was while I was at IBM when I started having health issues. It started with having clots behind both knees somewhere around 2010. At the time, my youngest had just been born and at 2 months had RSV, a major respiratory illness that put him in the NICU in Houston. That day I had been holding him all day long as we went from our pediatrician to Texas Children’s Hospital downtown by ambulance. My back had been hurting all day, but my son was the priority. Once he was admitted into the NICU, my wife and I had to leave to travel to the other side of Houston to pick our other two children up from their grandparents, and as we were driving, my back hurt so bad that I had to stop at a hospital on the way. After receiving pain medication and a few scans, it was determined that I had suffered a kidney stone, and was then sent home. Later that week, I followed up with my physician and it was determined that I had very abnormal blood and kidney function results. This is when we determined that I had some form of kidney disease. It was also when I was first diagnosed with High Blood Pressure. My Father has struggled with Diabetes and Kidney Disease for decades, but all of his health issues had always been attributed to his Type 2 Diabetes. I did not have Diabetes at all, yet had the exact same kidney issues, this time at a much younger age than my father did. After a biopsy of my kidneys, it was determined that I had Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (or FSGS for short).
Think of the kidneys as an internal coffee filter. It works when it’s fresh and new and fully intact. My kidneys are like coffee filters that have tears in the fabric. Because of this, they can’t filter very well, and start to shut down. For me, the complete shutdown of my kidneys was gradual and took about nine to ten years to happen. During that time, my first set of doctors had me on extremely high doses of Prednisone, a common anti-inflammatory drug. Bad part about that is the number of side effects that it causes. I ended up gaining 70 pounds very quickly, and then lost all 70 pounds within two weeks when I was put on Lasix which helps you shed excess water. I was also a medically induced Diabetic, and dealt with rage and manic issues while I was on Prednisone. So, on top of dealing with failing kidneys, I also now had to learn how to deal with Diabetes as well. Since the 18 months of Prednisone use, I’ve also had arthritis form in my shoulders and hip, and had permanent retina damage occur. I still have to deal with the retina damage to this day, which my high blood pressure has made worse. I had also thought that my high blood pressure was the cause of my kidney issues, but I was assured by one of the best kidney transplant doctors in the world that FSGS is not caused by high blood pressure. Unfortunately for me, the cause is idiopathic, which, in layman's terms, means that doctors have no idea what the cause is. There were many days while working for Q1/IBM where I was so ill that I could barely make it out of bed. Despite my illness, I still managed to make 100% of my sales quota, and still made it to President’s club several times.
After leaving IBM in 2013, I joined a Cloud Security startup company called Netskope, which had only had around 70 employees at that time. Netskope has since grown to over 1100 employees globally now and it’s been an amazing journey watching the company grow while I am still dealing with my illness. From 2016 until now, I have been on the Board of Directors for our neighborhood swim team, and have acted as the Computer Manager for the last three years.
For most of the first part of 2019, I attempted to try to see if eating a Vegan diet would help my kidneys, but unbeknownst to me, the lack of animal protein was probably the worst thing I could have done to my body. Being a Vegan for ten months was very difficult, but in the end did not help my situation. When dealing with kidney issues, it’s very important to keep your blood pressure low, and to work with a good nutritionist that can help navigate the disease. Unfortunately for me, my kidneys completely failed in August of 2019 and forced me to go on dialysis. At that point, I was also put on the National Kidney Transplant list, which has an average waiting time of three to five years for someone with type A blood. At that point, I chose to do Peritoneal Dialysis (PD) at home, which in the end, also turned out to not work for me. My body was not able to remove the toxins that just normally build up in your body. The side effect of this was that I was retaining too much fluid, and was constantly driving my blood pressure too high. After being on high doses of six different high blood pressure medications, and my blood pressure remaining too high, I wound up in the emergency room, at the hospital, first for pneumonia, and then a week later, being transported by ambulance for breathing difficulty and uncontrolled blood pressure that was 212/140. At that level, you can easily have a stroke or a heart attack. All of this happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, which made the two hospital stays very nerve racking. I ended up having a Doppler scan of my heart while in the hospital, and was told that I only had 42% function in one of the chambers of my heart, and that I was now in heart failure. Of course, that news caused me to panic even more than before. During the ten day ICU/Hospital stay, I was switched over to hemodialysis and went through five sessions of dialysis where they ended up pulling a total of 10.2 liters of fluid off of me, or roughly 20 pounds of liquid. Once that happened, my blood pressure dropped down to around 130/70, or a more normal range, I noticed that I could breathe much easier than before, and that my heart had now returned to a more normal 50-55% function of the chamber. I’ve since been able to keep my blood pressure in a more normal range, but it means that I have to visit a dialysis clinic every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for 5 hours each day. It’s been a bit of an adjustment, but I’m feeling much better than I was while attempting to do home peritoneal dialysis.
I often get asked how I’m coping with all of these or if I’m depressed or frustrated. Truth of the matter is that I’ve managed to maintain a good attitude through all of this because the alternative doesn’t do anyone any good! I can only take one day at a time and I think attitude is a huge component of the healing process.
I’m supporting LivingBank.org because they are doing great work on behalf of individuals in desperate need of a transplant. There are so many people who are in need and far worse off than me. I hope you can help support LivingBank.org and spread the word. I hope that my story has provided a glimpse into the world of Kidney Disease and if you’re someone facing similar issues, please reach out and say hello. We can get through this.
- J
- R
- S
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