Raising Funds for Mike to Recover

Hi, my name is Tyler Tanabe. I’m one out of 3 kids to our Dad, Michael Tanabe. Right now, he’s recovering from his second kidney transplant of his life. The last one was 30 years ago and as you can imagine, the second time around (being 30 years older) the recovery process is definitely harder and more taxing on his body. Before this, he was undergoing 5 years of dialysis which weakened him and limited him a lot to what he loves best, surfing. Unfortunately, on top of that, because this was a last minute trip out of state, insurance will not cover his many other expenses outside of the hospital. Were asking for both prayers for a speedy recovery and any contribution, no matter how small, to cover the many expenses he’s recently came across.

A little background...our Dad has always been the strong, silent type. For many years he’s endured a lot of health battles and continually navigated through them as best as his body could. His first kidney transplant was in his early 30’s. He was blessed to be a match with one of his sisters, Cathy, and she ultimately and successfully donated one of her kidneys to him. He lived happily with that kidney for 25 years. He got to return to work, return to surfing, and return to being a dad to his 3 young kids. We will forever be grateful that we got the best Dad throughout those years. After the 25 year mark, his kidney started to decline again, as we knew it would eventually. He underwent 5 grueling years of dialysis that really took a toll on his mind, body, and overall well-being. On January 2, 2022, he rang in the New Year with a call from a San Francisco hospital that had a match for a kidney donor. It seemed surreal since finding a match for him has been an agonizing process thus far. Matching his antibodies was becoming increasingly difficult but they finally had one for him that met all the criteria to be a great donor. He booked the first flight he could and within the next couple hours, we hopped on a plane and made our way to San Francisco. The next day, January 3, he was being prepped for surgery. From the start, all went well. Kidney was producing urine, and he was on the mend. During the beginning of his recovery, he had a hard time keeping any food down, he lost a significant amount of weight but still was fighting and so was the kidney. His kidney was “sleepy” and to wake it he needed to go back onto dialysis to give it a little head start. Eventually he was able to get discharged about a week later and is now recovering in a hotel room. He is still very weak, along with his bladder that hasn’t been used in over 5 years. For right now, he’s in recovery mode and hopeful that he’ll be able to fly home soon, back to Hawai‘i. We thank you for reading about my Dad’s journey and hopeful that he’ll be surfing it up, playing with his grandkids soon!