$6,245 raised
·102 donations
Working for a heart and kidney transplant&recovery
Donation protected
I imagine there are probably a lot of people visiting these different pages that get pretty tired of reading super long descriptions and stories before finding out if they’re even interested. So to help those people out, Ive making a brief description/explanation and then below I’ll include a more in detail version of everything going on. So..... Here goes! Hello there, My name is Ryan, I’m 28 years old and I live with my beautiful wife, whom without, I wouldn’t be here today. A few years ago(5 now, to be specific) I was working a somewhat labor some job while working an apprenticeship. That labor heavy job caused me to find myself needing to go into the emergency room one evening late after work. At which time I found out both my heart and my kidneys were failing. I was told I would be at complete kidney failure within 3 months. And that as a result, my heart had also been drastically weakened. I did everything in my power to change everything in my life and to be as healthy as possible. As a result, I was able to hold out until about 1 year and 1/4 later when they finally gave out and I spent just short of 2 weeks in the hospital getting my body back to livable since I guess I had gone for a couple weeks with no kidney function trying to pretend nothing was wrong. I spent that time recovering, and since then, have spent every other day of the week at dialysis for a few hours and they trying to get back to normal the rest of the day. It’s a grand ole time. And doing what I can to stay as healthy as possible until I am able to receive a kidney transplant. Luckily I was blessed with an aunt who is both insanely loving and generous and happens to be a perfect match for donorship to me. And very much wants to go through with it. Unfortunately, its a lot more complicated than the simplicity of that... Between the dental work I need to have done, the rest of the specialists I need to revisit to sign off on whether or not my over all health is good enough to make it through the surgery, and all of the other little facets that make the whole thing possible. The one major one being the cost of tricking my body into being friends with my new found kidney enough to not kick it out. The anti-rejection meds are very expensive and I HAVE to take them every day. And the biggest hurdle to these are the fact that there is no insurance that covers these pills... and I cant get the transplant without them... Unfortunately all of this is very expensive and since I’ve had to stop tattooing and all work in general due to the effects dialysis and subsequent drastic poly-neuropathy has had on pretty much my whole body. And I’m embarrassed to admit having to go on to disability and its made even our everyday expenses more difficult. So to be realistic, the extra expenses of out of pocket dentistry costs, extra meds costs and everything else are pretty damn hard, if not an impossibility for some of them. Which all has culminated in me coming to you lovely people. Ive never been good at asking for help or admitting when things have become overwhelming, but here we are. The truth of the matter is I’m trying to raise money to cover the costs of my dentist procedures and some of the bills associated with my kidney disease and the transplant. As well as for the insanely high cost of the 100% crucial meds Ill have to rely on daily for the entire life of my new kidney. Ive set my goal kind of low and at a conservative number, just the basics. Pretty much just what is needed to start my transplant. Ive gotten most all other things in order and taken care ofTruth be told that was all done more than 2 years ago. Its just my teeth and these last few things, So I’m hoping with all of your help I can finally take this jump into taking my life back. I understand that 20 thousand is a ton of money to be hoping to receive from everyone’s kindness and selflessness, so I’m trying to come up with some type of way to say thank you to every single individual who is generous enough to help in any way. As an artist in many different ways I’m thinking of art pieces to send out to everyone or something along those lines. Thanks again for taking a few minutes out of your day to consider this possibility. Have a great day! I guess I should start by thanking everyone again for taking a moment to read about my cause. The use of these crowd funding sites is incredible and has done so much for so many based on the generosity of everyone. Ive never been one to ask others for help or a handout or really anything of the sort. And admitting I really do need the help is very hard for me. But as my wife and family have all told me, The fact of the matter is, I have come to the point where help is needed for me to move forward any further. My name is Ryan Stilwell. I just turned 28 a few days ago and I’ve been fighting with Endstage Chronic Renal Failure (Kidney Failure), Acute Congestive Heart Failure, Enlarged Ventricle Issues and because of those I’m dealing with a forever worsening case of Dimylinating PolyNeuropathy, which over the past two years, has taken all the feeling in my left leg from the knee down, all the use of my left leg from the knee down. As well, almost all of the feeling and use of my right leg and foot as well. Luckily I can still slightly move my right foot about an inch back and forth. Unfortunately The only feeling I get from my lower get-away sticks is a ton of pain (the nerves get confused basically) or the feeling that I need to stretch my legs every few seconds. Which due to lack of mobility is physically impossible. haha, its a cruel joke. I really don’t want this whole thing to be just a complain fest of all the problems I’m dealing with on a day to day basis. But, I would Like to just give a general idea as to why I’m even taking up your time and reaching out for help... The RunDown: Just under 4 years ago I was working as a door to door salesman for a security company in Atlanta while taking time off from working in a tattoo shop. After the first few weeks of working every day walking neighborhood to neighborhood on average of about 20 or more miles a day, I noticed my feet and legs were starting to hurt more and more, and were starting to swell drastically. To the point my shoes were no longer fitting. After trying my best to tough it out for another week or so, I eventually ended up back in town (about 2 hrs south) sitting next to my wife in the hospital. After a lot of tests and countless blood panels and a couple MRIs for good measure, they informed us I had Acute onset Conjestive Heart Failure As well as stage 4 Renal Failure (kidney Failure) Basically my heart was so weak that it could literally just stop beating at any moment and because of that the fluid in my blood wasn’t processing properly and was collecting in my chest around my heart and lungs. So essentially I was drowning in my own body. And my kidney function for an unknown reason was at less that 15% of what it should be. They believe both my heart ad my kidneys had been fighting against each other for quite some time and just decided to become evident due to the extended period of physical stress. Because of this, my doctors told my wife and I that my lifestyle would need to change drastically, and should expect either way to be on dialysis within the next 2 to 3 months. As the doctors suggested, I went on a war path of my lifestyle. I’ve always been slightly health conscious but by no means to the extent I needed to become from that moment forward. My wife and I got on every single kidney friendly website and looked for any kidney/heart health book we could find. We both love cooking so that helped a ton, since basically everything needed to be from scratch. Everything we found we did. Cleanses and juicing as well. Which I found out was in some instances not the best idea. Because most of what you are told are “healthy choices” as a normal healthy person, I cannot eat. Because all that healthy stuff is too hard for my body to process well with no kidneys to do it oddly enough. But even so, health crazy ahoy! We even moved up to Asheville, NC where I was attending many Lakota Indian Sweat Lodges and ceremonies. I was doing this for over a year. Thankfully all of these efforts were able to keep me from going on to dialysis for over a year past when the doctors told me. But unfortunately the day still came... I fought it for as long as I could and ignored the terrible pain and dealt with all the compounding health problems as they came, but eventually ended up back in that same hospital with my wife and my father. I was in horrible fluid overload, drowning in blood and fluid in my lungs because I had complete heart failure and end stage renal Failure ( complete kidney failure) I had spent the past over a year dealing with all the issues associated with these conditions while trying to both work a job and apprentice to learn to tattoo professionally. Honestly, this was near impossible. Ive never been one to want to ask for government assistance, so for the longest time I tried to just work jobs, push forward in my apprenticeship and do what I could to help support me and my wife. Eventually working got very hard and right before I had to go on to dialysis, I wasn’t able to work my normal job any longer and was let go due to inability and my over abundance of doctor visits and hospital visits. I kept trying to find any job I would be able to do, while trying to adjust to my new life on dialysis at 25 years old. But unfortunately dialysis every other day of my life right in the middle of the day, coupled with how wiped out and terrible I felt afterward. I was near impossible to find work. A family member finally convinced me to apply for disability. It took me nearly two years of fighting and being denied multiple times before being deemed eligible for disability. Thankfully earlier in my short life I had worked very hard, starting my first job at 14, so paying into social security all that time allowed me to be able to collect disability. It’s not much, but it helps so very much. That little bit of help I had received from that is a godsend but unfortunately things are still crazy heard for us. But we make it work where we can. As I was dealing with the day to day of those things, Ive been in the process of working on a kidney transplant. To my good luck I had many family members, a couple of friends, and even a couple of my tattoo clients volunteer to try and be a donor. And with all the luck in the world my aunt (father’s sister) was a near perfect/perfect match.So we’ve been able to move forward with the transplant process. Though there have been some roadblocks along the way which has drawn the process out much longer than hoped and anticipated. The main roadblocks Ive run into are for one, the dental work I need to have done before the doctors with give the go-ahead to even think about doing the transplant major surgery. Secondly the money I need to raise/save to pay for the anti-rejection drugs I will have to take every day for the rest of my life after the surgery to make sure my body will play nice with its new foreigner roommate and not kick him out. Well the kidney is coming from my aunt.. so Kicking her out? I’m in need of some somewhat serious dental procedures due to my body pulling the calcium and other minerals from my teeth and bones which has caused a few of my teeth to either crack in half and come out, or just simply crumple away to the root. Very painful, but tolerable. Thankfully its only a few and not my whole mouth. And once I get ,y transplant all those issues will be stopped in their tracks. But with all these broken teeth, The surgeons see them as a possibility of infection and because it has a direct link to my blood stream. And in my weakened immune state after the surgery, well simply put... It no bueno!!! After seeing a great dentist and orthosurgeon the shared thought is Ill need a bit of extensive cuts, removals, and fills to save you the ridiculously long description. And then as I said the cost of the anti-rejection drugs Ill have to take forever are ridiculously expensive. And for some reason, no insurance will cover them. I have found a foundation that at last I checked is set up to match dollar for dollar everything I raise to help with the cost of my medicines. Ive set my hopeful amount to raise at $30k... Honestly I am wrestling with myself over doing this whole thing at all. but especially for such a large amount. But in all honestly, I have come to terms with the fact that I do need the help and its more than just me, but my wife as well that is being effected. And I’m amazed all the time by the generosity people show on a daily basis. The $30k will cover the cost of all of the dental work Ill be paying for out of pocket for as well as help towards the costs of the anti-rejection meds until I’m able to find a secure means of affording them continuously. As well, Ive been told that the first little bit of recovery is a bit daunting which means my wife may have to take some time off from work and with my minuscule fixed income and her work being tight as it is, there’s definitely going to be some extra help we’ll need to figure out to make up for any time she may have to take off for me. Because they tell me I cannot take care of myself completely. No matter how much I argue haha. Through this whole process Ive had to humble myself a lot. And become open to accepting peoples help and love in this time of need. I’m surprised everyday when I hear about the giving nature and the want to help where they can, that people around the world have. I’m sure there are probably a million other pages like this one, with just as serious if not more serious situations than mine. I guess the long and short of it is, this is my situation currently, and I appreciate you taking a few minutes to read about it. If you’d be willing to donate even the smallest amount I owe you my everything and you have no idea the amount of gratitude I have for you. If not, no worries. Again, thank you for taking the time, and if you want to spend another 30 seconds on me, share this page for me to anything. Because the more circulation, more higher probability for success!! I’m planning on some type of interactive thing between myself and those who donate to the thing between myself and those who donate to the cause. For all those interested I’m thinking about getting names, emails, addresses or something like that, and sending out some art prints I do along the process. Just some cool art I do or friends of mine do for you guys to say thank you for your tremendous help. Being a tattooer before having to take the time off due to health, a lot of the prints and designs ill be doing will likely be in a cool neotraditionalist style, or fine-line black and grey drawing. As well, I’m thinking about making some personalized kidney stickers in funny positions, like a cartoon kidney with a shovel (a working kidney). Anyway, thanks again for taking the time and hope you have a good one. Take it easy! -Ryan S.
Donations
Organizer
Ryan Stilwell
Organizer
Warner Robins, GA