Bruce’s Story

About a month ago I met a woman online through a Facebook group I am a member of. We began chatting about a race we were both signing up to run in December of this year- we are both training for our first half marathon! I shared how I talked my husband into going with me, and he will be running also. This race will be his 4th half marathon, so he will most likely be waiting a while for me at the end. My friend shared that she would love to run with her husband, and just needed to get him a new kidney so he could run with her.

This statement caught me off guard, and I began to ask my friend thousands of questions. Why did he need a new kidney? How do you get a new kidney? What does someone do to give a kidney?

And then I was compelled to ask, how can I help?

This conversation set our friendship along a trajectory toward something truly amazing. Learning about her husband Bruce’s story, and researching more about kidney donation as a living donor has opened my eyes up to so much. It is amazing the amount of knowledge you can gain from one person in such a short amount of time without realizing it. So now, I would like to share with you Bruce’s story, along with some remarkable information about the power of being a living kidney donor. Given the uncertain times we are going through right now, I feel we all need to focus on something good in the world. Take a moment and think about hope, life, and how amazing the process of saving a life is.

And if being a donor isn’t for you- maybe it is for someone else you know. Please think about sharing this post to help us find Bruce his match.

My name is Bruce Davis. I am 57 years old, and have lived with kidney disease my whole life. I was born without ureters, which are the tubes that drain your kidneys. This caused continuous kidney infections as a child, and as a result severe kidney damage. The cause was not found until I was 12, and I had surgery in Houston Texas to create valves in my ureters. The surgery was a success and I no longer had kidney infections after my 12th birthday. However at 12 years old, I already had stage 3 kidney disease, which means I had less than 50% total kidney function. I was able to lead a fairly normal life until January of 2018 when I started to go into complete kidney failure with 6% kidney function. I received emergency dialysis at Harborview, and was in the hospital for 4 days. Dialysis continued for 5 months after my hospital stay, and some of my kidney function returned. I was able to get off of dailysis when my kidney function reached 12%, and I was referred to the University of Washington Kidney Transplant team to start the process of looking for a Living Donor kidney, and to be places on the kidney transplant list (which has a 4 year wait currently).

I am a good canidate for a kidney donor because of my unique situation where I have very good health overall, but bad kidney function. With a donor kidney, my kiney function would return to normal, and I would no longer need dialysis which is currently 10% effective.

I am a chiropractor in Seattle, Washington and run two practices specializing in Craniopathy- a technique using the cranial bones and the covering around the spinal canal called the dura-mater to relieve interference of the nervous system and alleviate stress within the human frame. I’ve been doing this for over 30 years. I also have 8 children- 5 boys and 3 girls. My oldest son is 33 years old, and my youngest son is 7 years old.

I have reached out to family and friends for the possibility of being a donor, and the University of Washington is interviewing and testing any possible matches. My blood type is O, so my donor would also need to have a blood type of O. They then also further test the antigens and cross-match blood to see if my blood makes antibodies to the donors blood. A live kidney donor lasts much longer than a deceased donor, and would be a better fit for me. The current wait for a deceased donor is 4 years, and I’ve been on the list for 2 years already. A donor kidney would essentially give me 20 years of a realtively healthy lifestyle, which is important for raising my 7 year old son. Dialysis is not a very good option because of the myraid of side effects it causes. It is very hard on your system; a kidney transplant is the best option for me, so that I can continue to do the healing work I do for my patients and to allow me to live an active and healthy life with my youngest son and family.

If you would like to learn more about what it means to be a living kidney donor, click here.

To see if you are Bruce’s long lost kidney donor match, click here!

And last, but certainly not least, if you made it this far, thank you. I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to read Bruce’s story. I know that donating a kidney is not an option for everyone, but simply educating ourselves and sharing this story and the knowledge behind the process can save so many lives.

To stay informed and up to date on Bruce’s journey, please check out our Facebook page, Operation Kure- The Search for Bruce’s Kidney. Like the page, and get updates as we continue to share information!