Support Colin's Journey to Recovery and Education

My Friend Colin

By Dana Britzman

I have known Colin for over 35 years. We met in high school and have been friends ever since. He hasn’t always had it easy. He had a terrible childhood, suffering both physical and mental abuse from his parents. But we have some great memories together growing up. I didn’t know it at the time, but our adventures together were some of the best times of our lives.

As we grew up, I found myself in a career in IT. He ended up working in transportation/trucking. He married the love of his life, only to have her taken by cancer a few years later. Straddled with over a hundred thousand dollars in medical debt from his wife's treatment, he worked the next 10 years or so and actually paid it off. Where most of us would have just declared bankruptcy, he settled his debts.

Trucking is demanding, HARD and often underappreciated work. But he stuck with it. He started his own business, owning his own truck. In an industry where most owner-operators struggle to make ends meet, he ran his business well enough and saved up. He transported oil and fuel in the oil fields in North Dakota. He delivered gas for years to gas stations here in Colorado. Sometimes, this took more bravery and toughness than it should have. Getting run over on the side of the road while trying to put snow chains on. Being held up and gunpoint either because people thought he could somehow give them free gas (sorry, the 4 inch truck hose doesn’t fit in the fuel filler of your car) or because he was “in the way with his big slow truck”. Day after day of being cut off, passed unsafely or brake checked while hauling 70,000 pounds of gas. All while driving the slipper mountain roads of Colorado in the winter. It was tough.

But, a few years ago, he was able to buy his own house. I can’t explain how proud I am of him that he did that. And he would tell you that was one of the most fulfilling accomplishments of his life.

But life has left him with some challenges. He has been diagnosed complex PTSD that he has tried to work though with his mental healthcare provider for years. Being around large groups of unknown people is something not easy for him.

In 2023, working with his health caretaker, he made the decision to get a service dog to he;p with his PTSD. But then it all got worse. The service dog trainer provided a dog that was not trained properly and did not have the right temperament or disposition for the job. In my opinion, what he got was an untrained, high-strung puppy that was no more a trained service dog than a poorly behaved house pet. Dealing with the dog and the failing trainer started to take it’s toll on him. I could see it when we visited.

On Tuesday, Aug 8 2023 in the evening, Colin was tripped by the dog. It cut across his legs in front of him as he was about to go down the stairs. He fell down the flight of stairs, hitting his head. I found him two days later on Thursday. We think he spent most of that time lying unconscious and injured on the hard floor. I took him to the emergency room that Thursday morning the 10th Aug. I still remember when they put a catheter in him and what came out looked like cola. Dark brown, almost black. He was transferred to St. Josheph hospital in Denver. It was that evening I learned what Rhabdomyolysis was. That is where your muscles start to break down, in this case, from lying still on the hard floor for about 36 hours. At first, the kidney’s try to filter it out, but it’s a loosing battle. Eventually the kidneys become injured and ineffective. Your blood chemistry starts to become poison. His Creatine (CK) levels were extremely high. He went through two rounds of emergency dialysis in the hospital ICU. He had about three more rounds of dialysis during his nine day stay at the hospital. They put enough fluids in him that he gained about 20 lbs. He finally got discharged on Sat Aug, 19th.

His discharge seemed a little early to me. He could barley stand, let alone walk without assistance. We went to two more ER visits the first couple of weeks after discharge. Problems with his heart rate were scary. Here's a picture from his first ER visit, two days after being discharged from the hospital, on Aug 21.

He started outpatient dialysis on Tuesday, Aug 22. For about three months, I drove him to dialysis an hour away three times a week. We didn’t know what would happen. I tried as best I could to balance working my job in IT while also taking care of him. I bought him food and took him to doctor appointments. I coordinated his care while he couldn’t. I paid his bills. Those first four months from Sep to Dec 2023 we didn’t know if he’d ever get better.

The first miracle is that the dialysis started to work. His kidneys got better. He got discharged from dialysis. Even the nephrologist was surprised at his recovery. Still very weak, and not walking very well, but he started to get stronger. But then, slowly, a little walking. Then more walking. He can walk a couple of miles now. He’s trying very hard to get better. Relatively speaking, he is much better now, but still unable to manage any prolonged physical exertion.

His primary care physician told him he could not go back to trucking or it would kill him. For the past year, he physically could not have done it anyway. Finding any job he could work has been tough. The job market is terrible, and the walk on jobs at $18 an hour aren’t going to cut it. So, we decided to pull the trigger and get him back to school. Following his lifelong dream, he enrolled in school in June this year 2024 at Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology in Broomfield, Colorado. He’s a smart guy. About 5 months in school so far and his GPA is still about 95%. That’s after taking physics and calculus as some of the opening courses. He is very lucky that he’s been able to get enough grants and student loans to pay for his school fees for the 2 year program.

Now, he would be one of the first people to tell you no one owes him anything. He has worked his butt off his whole life. But it’s getting harder to find money to keep him in his house and going to school. He has sold much of his personal property worth any value. He also has ongoing medical bills and insurance that cost about $700 a month by themselves (he has no employer sponsored healthcare right now). I am afraid that if he losses his house, this will have a very bad effect on his mental state. With his PTSD, he needs a place he can feel safe. He has started over so many times in his life, I don’t know if he could do it again without the house he bought on his own.

Since his fall and hospital stay last year, I have personally gifted or loaned him over $30,000 of my own money to help support him. I am one person, with my own family. I am lucky enough that I could help him. At some point soon, I won’t be able to meet both his needs and take care of my own family. So, I am reaching out for help, for him. If we can just get him through school, or even halfway, he should be able to make it. At the halfway point in school, aircraft industry employers can hire students part time out of the school, but not before. The aircraft industry he is training for pays well and the job market looks better than most things these days.

He is just now, health-wise, at a point where we think he could think about a part time job that isn’t too physical. He is applying for some. But a part time $20/hr job isn’t going to cover it. There’s still a big gap to cover. Living expenses are steep today. Figure about $2200 a month to cover the mortgage, $700 for medical insurance, copays and deductible, and another $1000 for food, gas and keeping the lights on. But that is a LOT of money. I don’t think the karma wagon is that big. So I’m just putting this out there and hoping for the best. Whatever can be given is truly appreciated. I don’t even want to put any kind of goal on this.

Through everything that has happened to him he has remained one of the nicest and most caring people I have ever known. He would help anyone in need that he could. He once emptied out his refrigerator and gave food for a neighbor that was struggling and could not buy food. I was with him when he bought three portable air conditioner units, at a cost of over $700, for a family that had there AC break in the middle of a hot summer last year, unable to pay for the repairs themselves, and caring for their autistic child. He has, and would still, do anything he could to help me out if I needed it. He is a Deacon at his church and works with the kids in Sunday school.

No one reading this knows him like I do. A good person. A brother to me. And I can’t imagine anyone giving up their own money to help someone they don’t know like I do. But I have to try. I don’t know what else to do at this point. I’ve always tried to be a good person myself. But being a realist, I have always told myself “I can’t help everyone.” But if I could just help ONE person to truly make a difference in their lives, maybe that’s enough. For me, Colin is that one person.