Bye Bye Beardie

Hi Everyone!! Here’s the deal: during August, I am putting this challenge out there to all of my friends to donate to this fundraiser. Whether you would like to donate $5 or $50,000, it is all going to a great place. On August 28, I will be cutting my beard to the length determined by what all of you are willing to help out with and will be donating the total amount raised to the dialysis unit at Kelowna General Hospital.

Why the end of August? As of that date, I will have been growing this luscious mane for 30 months, the same number of months my wife Kristyn was on dialysis before receiving her most recent kidney transplant. Without the advancements of science in renal disease research, I would have lost my wife to an unexpected auto-immune disorder when she was in her late 30s.

Autoimmune disorders can attack any one of our bodies at any age, and I pray that none of you will ever have to endure the taxation that it causes on one’s mental and physical health. I was not familiar with the intricacies of dialysis and how long the process actually takes prior to my wife’s attack, but I can now tell you that being tethered to a machine 3 days a week to keep one’s self alive is an absolutely incredible advancement in science and technology, but it is not a fun way to live. Being on dialysis is a pretty much a full-time job, which automatically replaces what our healthy kidneys do.

This challenge would not be complete without me also recognizing Fred Jarvis and Brian Hurry. These 2 amazing men stepped up and both selflessly each donated one of their kidneys to Kristyn. They need to be recognized as the heroes that they are. Because of advances in science, we can remove someone’s functioning kidney and put it into someone else’s body, removing the need to be on dialysis. Albeit exceptional, I hope that with even greater advancements, that we will eventually find a way to find an even better way to replace a nonfunctioning kidney.

Thank you to everyone that has supported all good causes like this, and even if you are unable to donate to this cause, I appreciate your time reading this, and hope that you will add a little more compassion to your life because of it.