Support Buck Kasowski

Hey everyone, this is Kelly Howe (Buck's son-in-law),

To update everyone I will start from the beginning and hopefully it will explain what all has happened in the past 48 hours:

On Saturday, Buck began to not feel well. Around 4pm he came into the room and told Carrie to call the hospital (which you all know he would NEVER do unless it was serious). He then began to lose consciousness and fell onto the bed next to her. She told him she was going to call 911 and you all can imagine his response - “don't call an ambulance that will cost $400!” Well, luckily for all of us Carrie called and the ambulance got there quickly. He was not responding and the EMT put him on the gurney and carried him down the stairs and out the front door. Very scary time for Carrie.

The ER at Altru did an outstanding job after getting him admitted and setup. They realized there was something more than the Covid they both had weeks prior. Former UND football player Paul German, who played with Ryan at UND, just happened to be working as the doctor at ER that day. What a blessing he was! They assembled the team very quickly and got everything hooked up, tests run and figured out that his Aorta was ruptured due to an aneurysm. Buck's aorta was double the diameter it should've been due to the aneurysm and finally was beginning to rupture. It internally bled and spilled his abdomen.

As we found out that is very scary and life threatening. They got him hooked up to blood transfusions to keep him alive while calling in the vascular surgeon, who just happened to be filling in that weekend from California. Around 8:00 they got Buck up to surgery. The surgeon came down and told us what they are going to do but prepped us about the chance of mortality. It was a tough time for the family as all of us had now made it to Altru and were doing family prayers by the hour.

The surgeon told us Buck that he was very lucky to even make it to the hospital as 80% of people that have an aorta aneurysm pass away before getting to the hospital and of the 20% that do make it half don’t make it through the surgery and come out the other side. If they do it is truly a blessing from God.

Well, Buck made it through the first surgery! They came down around 1:00am and let us know he was OK and they got it! But now the battle begins. The fortunate part is the guy battling is a tough hombre. Maybe the toughest guy I know.

Buck is now in the ICU at Altru and has a team monitoring him round the clock. He is progressing and able to urinate on his own while also accepting dialysis to help clean out his system. They have him down to two medications that help with his blood pressure. Buck needs to be able to have the ability to function without those medications so that is the latest thing they are monitoring.

Buck will need dialysis for the rest of his life, unfortunately. They were unable to reconnect the arteries to the kidneys due to the location of the rupture.

A great sign was when he woke up yesterday and looked at the nurse. She quickly spoke to him telling him that Carrie is OK and the kids are OK and they are here. She asked him to squeeze her hand and he did! His nurse in the ICU, Emily, is the absolute best. Smart, caring, decisive. We owe her greatly along with the rest of the team that has been working tirelessly.

Right now it is a time of stability for Buck. Things are improving and that is all we can ask for. Please say a prayer for Buck and also for Carrie. She is the salt of the earth and this has been devastating to say the least. Those two had an unbelievable marriage built on faith and love. They need each other to function!

I will try and keep updates coming but you can also find Carly, Sarah and Emmy on Facebook, as well, if you want to reach out. We are starting to sense that this is going to be a long, tough process for Buck & Carrie.

You all know Buck would give a hard NO to the idea of a GoFundMe as he is the last person on earth who would ever accept help from anyone, for anything really :)

But this is different and the expenses are going to accumulate very quickly and are going to continue for quite awhile. The doctors informed us that this is going to be a marathon and is just starting.

Thank you all!