PowerLiving with Kimberlee Langford
PowerLiving with Kimberlee Langford
From Football Dreams to Kidney Failure: David Rush's Inspiring Journey
All right. So welcome to the clinical brown bag. We're really happy to have you here, david, and I know you know your story is such an inspiration. When I first heard about your story and of course around the socket to kidneys, I think that really impressed me, your message, and I looked into more about you and your work and you know what you're doing and just stories like yours, I think, are so inspirational for people with kidney disease or who are on dialysis and you know, knowing that their life isn't over on dialysis and you know knowing that their life isn't over and that you know we can all do something every day to make our lives a little bit better than they were the day before. But, with that being said, if you wouldn't mind, uh floor is yours. We'd love to have you introduce yourself and, you know, share a little bit about you know what you're doing and you know and your story your journey thus far and and your message, sure, sure.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody. Thanks for the intros. Appreciate hearing everybody's position and calling and purpose. My name is David Rush. I am a dialysis patient. I was diagnosed all the way back in high school. It started.
Speaker 2:For me, my journey was something that I never thought would bring me to this point in my life of doing anything that I'm doing now. I had like my own dreams and own perception of what my life was supposed to be like. We all do growing up and there's a lot of decisions in my life that were made for me. There's a lot of decisions in my life that happened because of something else. So for me, making it to this point in my life when when told that it would be a little bit different it is in itself for me personally, is a testimony that I began to share.
Speaker 2:That I realized was helping other people and started to really move forward in this space, in this kidney community and in all chronic diseases and inspirational speaking and that whole space that I knew existed but didn't know to what extent that it could be used and never thought it would be me and standing up there having talks and all that type of stuff. That wasn't my lane when I started, but it was definitely something that was a calling. I guess that was needed. I guess for me personally like a therapy, and it started to help me navigate my disease and learn about my disease more and care that I had a disease and care that I was sick Because in the beginning, I was so young that I was in denial and didn't care what was going on, because I felt that it was fake.
Speaker 2:I felt that it was just something I was going to pass over and I would get medication and everything would be fine. I was 16 years old. I was still in high school when they first saw that I had too much protein in my urine. I was pretty much just doing physical football. That was the dream play football and go play in the NFL, make a whole bunch of money, buy a whole bunch of cars and sneakers and houses and live a life.
Speaker 2:Everybody's dream, yeah, and I had family that played in the NFL and everything. So I'd see the dream come true already. So I knew that I was able to grasp it. So it was just for me that's what it was going to be. And I was playing ball from a small town in New Jersey and it's literally like a mile long, my town and I played for that team and we had a pretty good team. So I was getting looks, I was getting scholarship offers from 10th grade, 9th grade. I was getting, like you know, georgia, southern Georgia Tech, virginia Tech, like schools that I was interested in going to, and so I was pursuing that. So I was working hard and I went for 10th grade, my 10th grade year. We had a really good team presented to probably possibly go to go to state finals.
Speaker 2:And I took a urine sample before the season started and we did summer camp and took a urine sample before the season started. And we did summer camp and took a urine sample and they found protein in my urine, which to me absolutely meant nothing at 16 years old. Like, okay, protein in my urine, that means nothing. You know what I mean. I'm 16 years old, I eat a whole bunch of chicken. So of course it's going to be protein in my urine. So they say, no, you have to go to a specialist and get um, you know, a biopsy done. So I go get a biopsy done, just scarring on the tissue of my kidneys. They start talking to me about these kidney issues to me again at 16 years old. Whatever, give me the medication so I can just get back to playing ball and they tell me you know, your blood pressure is a little high, you need to drop some weight. So I played. If you know anything about football, I played on the line. So all the big boys are online.
Speaker 2:So yeah, you know, I'm not dropping any weight yeah, I'm an offensive defensive line and I'm dropping weight for me is a sin. So, um, you know I walk around at 265. In 10th grade I was six foot so it was like dropping away from me would put me in another position that I had to learn over. But but they said, take the summer off. Actually, you can't play ball this year because we don't know what type of kidney disease you had. Not a banging on your kidneys may cause some other type of trauma, so you need to sit out this year. So after kicking and screaming about it, you know I set out for the year. I did a summer course with my trainer. I ended up losing 88 pounds and came back a tight like 210 for my 11th grade season, which absolutely got me thrown around the field. I was nowhere explosive as I was. The year before Scholarships stopped and all the calls kind of slowed down because, being from downtown, you needed all four years of school for them to see the tape on you.
Speaker 2:And all my scholarship opportunities stopped. So, before knowing what I had or whatever, kidney disease was already slowing down my future without me even knowing what was going on. So, of course, luckily, you know, mom always taught me to have a brain and not just be a jock, so I had a 3.8 GPA.
Speaker 2:I had a mama a 3.8 GPA and so I ended up leaving and going down to Atlanta for school and went to art school. So I met a nephrologist and stuff before I left. They didn't really show any main concern, like it was going to be something long-term. So in my head I'm fine, right. So I'm in college, I'm in Atlanta in college in 2000, which is hot Atlanta at the time. I'm in college in Atlanta. So I'm turning up, I'm having a good time, I'm learning in school, I'm in the clubs, I'm doing music. I was doing music too for a long time. So I'm in the scene and I'm building up my music career, at the same time going to school. So I never left school, I did school all through the summer. So I did a four year program in two years. I was done in two years already. So when I was done and finished, I was working for MTV, doing an internship, basically editing their version of TRL for Europe at Turner Network. So I was in working internship. But internship question I'm making no money, but I'm in Atlanta and I'm, you know, I'm, I'm dealing with it.
Speaker 2:Um, I had a girlfriend the whole time, um, from from Jersey, who was still in Jersey, and so I was trying to move her down, cause I felt like my career was going to start here. But uh, she wasn't having it and so I was like all right, you know, after a while being an intern, you broke. I'm like you know what, let me go home and recalibrate and figure out what I do. So I go home, so she's working internal medicine at internal medicine group. So she's like come to my job, come get a physical done. So I go to her job, I go get a physical done and my creatinine levels come back Crazy, like nuts.
Speaker 2:And she's like you know, when she checks me, she's like your blood pressure's high. And I'm like I'm good, like and I feel fine, there's nothing wrong with my blood pressure. I'm like you know, you're new to this, you don't know what you're doing, maybe you did it wrong or whatever. And she's like no, I didn't do it wrong. So she took it again and it was high again. It came down by like two points and like see, better is better. She's like no, this sucks actually. And I was like I'll be all right, you know, just denial. You know, like any patient like, I'm fine, I feel fine so you know I'll be all right.
Speaker 2:Um. She then um takes my blood sample. I leave. I remember go home that night. It's a monday. Monday morning I get home that day. She goes to work around seven o'clock. She calls me and she's like we're going to the hospital and I'm like what's wrong with you? And she's like nothing's wrong me. She was like your creatinine, um, is a 14 or 12, 12, 12. And I'm like okay, like what does that mean?
Speaker 1:like you're like your kidneys and you weren't tired, nauseous, anything like that no, wow, I was running.
Speaker 2:I was running and doing music and I was performing in the clubs Like I was on full tilt. I didn't feel anything. So she's like. She's like, yeah, we have to go to the hospital. So they're in there doing pressure on me, they're doing all this stuff and speaking all this dialect that I didn't understand, all these acronyms I didn't understand, and all these EFR you know EFR, you know?
Speaker 2:know EFR number and BMI and blah, blah, blah, and I'm just like you're being when and you're yeah give me, give me, give me the saline and antibiotics so I can go home like in my head, that's what a hospital is about, because I don't feel sick and I'm in denial, full denial mode at this point. So I meet a second nephrologist. We start to get really close. After like my third or fourth visit. I'm like, dude, just be real with me and let me know what's going on in my life, like what I need to do. I'm 24 years old. God, I haven't done anything. Like to really be gawked at. Like I haven't bought a house yet, i't have a family, like I didn't do anything yet, like I'm still figuring out life at this point. And he's like well, you're 24. If you don't start dialysis within a year, you won't see your 25th birthday. Creatinine is a 16. So I'm like all right, like I hear you.
Speaker 2:Um, they gave me a medication that slowed the progression, but at that point I'm already stage five or stage four. So I'm like, okay, we'll talk about this dialysis thing or whatever. But I wasn't trying to hear it and I was working a full-time job at this time. So I'm working at Staples delivering to. I was like Batman, like I did this in the morning. I worked this regular job, but at night, like I was in clubs. I at night, like I was in clubs. I'm performing, I'm traveling like I'm trying to get my career going, but I'm also working. I understand I have bills still. I have this car that looks the part, but I have to pay for it.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying so I'm like I'm doing all this stuff to kind of like I'm young and just gunning you have no time to take your foot off the gas yeah, not at all at all.
Speaker 2:I was right there, I was right close, and so basically, I'm working. One day I come home and live with my sister because I was in transition of getting a place or whatever and I end up passing out, make conversation with her and when I wake up I'm at the hospital. And when I wake up again, after knocking out again, I wake up again. I have this pain in my chest and it's throbbing and I look over and it's a fistula and I'm hooked up to a machine. So, march 2007, I crashed into dialysis. So I wake up on the machine and you know I'm bugging out and they're just like calm down, calm down. You know, welcome to your first dialysis.
Speaker 2:And I'm in disbelief at this point that it was real, was real, you know, and I'm this is happening and so I'm on treatment and I just thought in my mind, like every patient who crashes in like this, is it I'm gonna die at 25 years old and have done nothing with my life. And uh, the first three months, um, first six weeks, I stayed in the hospital. My creatinine was like 18 and, uh, I did five hours a day for four weeks in the hospital. I had to stay in the hospital because of how high my creatinine was and they thought that you know I was going to shut down. You know like stuff was going to happen, and so they kept me there. For four weeks I did dialysis every day. It was a flight from New Jersey to LA. I was taking flights to LA every day.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So to LA. I was taking flights to LA every day, so they got me down. I flew it down and everything like that, and so I went to a DCI unit and, you know, started doing in-center dialysis there and you know it was just an experience, man. You know you start to meet the staff and you start to get cool with the PCTs and you got to get cool with all the techs and you know I got cool with all that. You know me and the dietician bump heads all the time and you know I didn't like not having what I wanted to have and understanding what phosphorus and potassium was.
Speaker 2:And you know I was stubborn in the beginning and I didn't like standing on a scale and nobody telling me I was over fluid, like I didn't want none of that. I just wanted y'all to do what I had to do and I do it. I was angry a little yeah, it'll be hard, because I'm really not like that as a person but at that time my life was turned upside down and I was just in a dark place at the time and so I was still having a career. I had just signed my deal with Pitbull when I started dialysis and, uh, no know I was on it. I didn't want to tell him because I didn't want him to look at me as weak or something. I guess my machoism at the time was all in the wrong space and I just was like I don't want him to think I'm weak.
Speaker 1:We're sick. I don't want to be sick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't want him to look at me like a sick rapper. You know what I mean. So I would do my treatment Monday, wednesday, friday. Fly out Friday night to Miami, hit the studio at night. Hit the studio on Saturday. Hit the studio Sunday. Take a red eye back Sunday night, land at 3 am in Jersey and then drive my car to treatment for 5 am on a morning. I did that for a year straight without telling him why we worked on the album.
Speaker 3:And then, one day, he called me.
Speaker 2:He was like yo I need you to come to miami on wednesday I was like oh, I can't bro. He's like why? You know, like bro, um I'm lying and stuff.
Speaker 2:He's like bro, why can't you come? Like we have a video shoot, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like I have dialysis. I just told him he's like what? And I was like I have dialysis. I just told him he's like what? And I was like I have dialysis, bro, and I started breaking down what it is. And he's like dude, like why didn't you tell me? And I was like I thought you might. You know, I don't know. He was just like nah, bro, like that's crazy. You know like he was shocked.
Speaker 2:And then, maybe about a month later, he calls me. He goes hey, I know it's dialysis and stuff, but 2009, he's like hey, we're going on tour, do you want to come? And I'm like hell, yeah. So excuse me. I'm like heck, yeah, I want to go right. And so he's like all right. So I hang up the phone. I'm in treatment. I remember telling him about it. I'm going on tour and you know like my social workers like how? And I'm like thank you, like you busted my bubble, but how are you going to do? I was like I don't know you tell me.
Speaker 2:We looked up yeah, we looked up mobile dialysis and that's when we found home dialysis. So at the time it was the next stage machine and I went and I learned it and I did six weeks training on it and I started to put my own needles and all that stuff ended up taking that machine on a 52 city tour. I toured from LA all the way back to uh, radio City Music Hall, new York City 52 cities, didn't? I did treatment six days a week and then I didn't miss one show. So I did dialysis in every hotel room around the world, bled all over their carpets and left bloodstains everywhere that I could. So if there's ever a first 48 and my name comes up, I didn't do it. So we did that and so I did the tour, which was a highlight of my life. I got back home Before I left.
Speaker 2:I wasn't eligible for a kidney because I was too big. I still had weight from high school and just up and down I was taking medications and body just reacting different to stuff. So I was a big guy. I've always been a big guy in my life, but I was always this guy that said I carried it well or whatever. So I was like dude, I didn't mind being a big dude, I still don't mind being a big guy. You know, gives me a little leverage sometimes out here.
Speaker 2:But uh, I, I was too big, overweight to get a kidney at the time. But on tour, nothing like. You lose more weight on tour than you do anything because you're jumping around the stage for two hours a night and you know you're just kind of hanging out, you're not eating right. So I had lost a whole bunch of weight on tour. So my bmi was in a good position. Um, I asked my girlfriend at the time to marry me before I left for tour and when I got back we're going to have our wedding and so she agreed to marry me. So you know, contractually, when a girl saves your life by taking your blood work, you kind of got to marry him. I think it's like in the Constitution.
Speaker 1:Are you still married to her?
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh yeah, we're still married. We've been together since we were going out in high school. We've been together since high school, 26 years together. We've been married for 15. She saved my life. She's a big part of this story and this journey. When I got sick, I asked her to leave and told her I don't know where I'm going. I got sick. I actually leave and told her you know, like you know I thought I was out of here.
Speaker 2:So I told her like I don't think you want to be with a sick guy and you know you can leave me and I won't. I won't be mad at you, we can still be friends or whatever. And you know I don't think you deserve to be with somebody like me. And uh, she stayed and um, and you know she's yeah um you done good, david, yeah I did.
Speaker 1:I hit the jackpot for real um, she did too when I got back.
Speaker 2:When I got back it was july. We were scheduled to be married july 10th 2010, so tour was done in that year. July 9th, I'm home doing dialysis at home and the phone ratings and she's there cuz we're going over like the seating. Then you know the wings, the next one the next day and it's Robert Wood Johnson Hospital and they say you have a kidney here and.
Speaker 2:I'm like what like? They're like you have a kidney here and I'm like what Like? Like you have a kidney here, 55 year old man, car accident, the kidney's yours, come get it. So everybody's bugging out. You know our wedding's tomorrow. My mom is like in the corner, like having church, screaming and hollering. My wife was like you know, go get that kidney or whatever, don't worry about the wedding, you know we'll, we'll figure it out. So I took some, took a minute for myself, kind of kicked everybody out the room, took a minute for myself. And then I came back and I told the guy, the lady on the phone, like no, thank you, you know, I don't, I don't want it.
Speaker 2:And she was like, excuse me. I was like I don't, I don't want mine, and so she called me back later and the nurse was like the kidney wouldn't have worked.
Speaker 2:It had some issues with it and stuff like that. But this is how I found out I was eligible for transplant. So I have a brother nine years older than me. His name is Dwayne. We call him Monster because he's huge, his tattoo's all over his body, he looks like he's been locked up a million days, but he hasn't. He's really a nice guy. So Monster wants to go. He goes to get tested and he comes back a perfect match blood type, and so he decides to give me his kidney. So November 9th 2010, I'd had my transplant. He saves my life and that kidney that changed my life from doing dialysis every day to not having to do it anymore and from telling me I won't be able to have children to then, in that time span of having two kids back to back. You know, 11 months, 11 days apart.
Speaker 2:Irish twins boy and a girl, and so the kidney's working right. And so it's seven years with that kidney and I start to feel some of the symptoms that I felt prior to getting sick. Now I know a little bit about my disease. I've got all into what it feels like and what symptoms are, and everyday life of dialysis and stuff. So I'm like, okay, I feel like something's going on with my kidney again and, sure enough, my doctor confirms that I'm losing the new transplanted kidney. So, 2017, I lose that kidney.
Speaker 2:I end up back on dialysis. I go straight to home dialysis again because it's what I knew. But I have two kids now and if you have kids, they run the house and my stuff and their stuff and dialysis, treatment stuff, and we didn't have a really big house at the time and I felt like I was overwhelming the home and so I opted to go back and center. I was burnt out too. I was doing six days a week Plus. I felt like I was saying no so much as a patient, you know, you feel like you're more of a burden to your family and felt like everything was no, we can't go here. No, I can't. Daddy has treatment no. Daddy has dialysis no, daddy's too tired, I just. I hated saying no to my kids, so I figured three days a week opposed to six days a week I can say yes, a little more to my kids. So I decided to go back and center I went back and center.
Speaker 2:And then covid happened. Um august 2 2012, I lost my mom. She was 55 years old. She died from a liver complication. Autoimmune disease killed her liver. I lost her and then COVID happens in 20. I go home 2021, I lose my dad to COVID.
Speaker 1:Oh geez.
Speaker 2:And so it was a rough.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, hard 2019, right before COVID hit and I went back home to house, I got really, really sick and I don't know what it was and Ended up being that, um, my native kidneys had grown to the size of a melon the kidneys I was born with. So they said we're gonna have to get those kidneys out of you. So, 2019, I have a 10-hour surgery with it to take out my gallbladder and both of my kidneys and heal a anhylhernia that I had because of the kidneys pushing all the organs over. And so when they got all the kidneys out, put it on the table and opened it up in 2019, they realized that there was a sack in there and I was living with kidney cancer for a whole year and a half and didn't know that's why I was so sick.
Speaker 2:So I had 86 staples in my stomach. So they were going to reopen me the next day to go back in and clear me out for cancer. Because they didn't. They weren't doing it for cancer, they're doing it for the kidneys. So I was man, they're gonna open me back up again. Um, but the doctor stopped and said let's just monitor him for six months to a year and see, you know, his numbers changed and we'll go back in and clear him out for cancer.
Speaker 2:So I had to stay in the hospital for a few weeks and then, you know, I had 86 stitches in my stomach, going from my navel up to the middle of my chest, and they monitored me for 12 months and after that, happy to say that I'm cancer free. And then I ended up I'm cancer free, thank God. And then I ended up getting sick with what we know now as COVID, and they couldn't get me right. I was in the hospital for two weeks and my blood level oxygen level kept dropping and dropping and dropping. They were giving me all these antibiotics and nothing was working. They had to give me a concoction of stuff to get my blood oxygen level back up. But me, the reason I think it went back up was because they would tell me to lay down and not move, but I would just get up in the middle of the night and walk and make myself breathe, like I take big breaths and like yeah, yeah, I mean like moving around that, and they're like mr
Speaker 2:you have to lay down like no, like I'm gonna die laying in that bed, like I was calling my family, telling them not to come because I didn't know what I had, or whatever. And that's when COVID hit. So I went home back doing home dialysis on a new machine, the tableau machine now, which was like less days and less time and, um, you know, and I've been doing home dialysis ever since, so all the speaking and stuff that I started doing was after I did that trip and when I know how extensively how do I use the machine. And so I started doing was after I did that trip. They want to know how extensively how do I use the machine. And so I started talking about living on dialysis, which is similar to what you guys talk about and how, to this day still, I still travel, you know, go across the world to speak. You know often um my schedule. Last year I think we did 20. I got to ask my manager.
Speaker 2:I think it was about 32 cities last year, just traveling and speaking, and you know, from here to Hawaii, just speaking on living with dialysis and pushing through and talking to healthcare teams and doctors and patients and people like myself and just trying to inspire people to live on dialysis you know, because for a time dialysis I was living for, you know, for dialysis, you know, know, not living for me for the treatment of just day to day.
Speaker 2:And even to today, you know, dialysis sessions still melt together. It seems like I just had it and I have tomorrow and it's like it. Sometimes some days I'm like I'm tired, you know, like I'm tired of it, but then I'm thankful because it's one of the only chronic illnesses besides chemotherapy that can, you can, last without a kidney because of this treatment. So I'm thankful.
Speaker 2:So where I'm at now is that I'm still speaking. It landed me a job with USRC, uh, us renal care last year. I'll be a year April. Um, I'm a corporate kidney care options educator with them so I educate patients on all their modality choices for home dialysis. I also have 23 other KCOs on the team that I create toolkits for and kind of help them to navigate. Talking to patients like me. You know like how to talk to patients, what to say to patients, what patients are thinking, giving them patient perspective, patient facing stuff like that.
Speaker 2:And I'm on a whole bunch of boards a whole bunch of boards that I'm able to work with and kind of help out to, as well as an advocate and a motivational speaker, which has been great.
Speaker 3:And so the last 12 years I've been doing as a career as a motivational speaker.
Speaker 2:I just landed this corporate job a year ago, which is taking up some time, but I'm still very active in the motivational speaking, have a couple trips, like in the next few days, so it's pretty cool to travel around throughout that.
Speaker 2:So I have la nashville, then I'll be in la, then I'll be in chicago and in florida over the next course of the next two, three months. So it's been something, guys, that I never thought that would be my life, um, from football to music and acting and then now becoming a speaker and an advocate. It's taken me down a road that I never thought I would be at, but it has helped me in a way where it's more of like a therapy for myself to talk about it and get it out, and so if I'm helping anybody, it's you know, I'm really like what people ask me, what I do, I just tell them that I tell my story for myself and hope that it helps somebody else. Like that's really it. I'm just sharing a story and then if someone else can benefit from it, and that's more like the icing on the cake for me, because it's already helped me, help me heal, so it allows me to heal.
Speaker 2:But then if somebody would come to me and say, thank, thank you so much, you helped me. I'm like, oh yeah, like it's, it's an extra thing. You know what I mean. Like it's extra, so it's. It's a blessing for me more than anything to be able to do it. So it's opened a lot of doors for me. I've been able to partner with some great companies and help some initiative pass through and, you know, kind of lobby for nurses and just things that I just never thought in a million years. Like I said, I was trying to be a ballplayer and just get money and just live life right off into the sunset with a Porsche or something. That was just all I wanted to do. But this is my new world. I've been able to see the world as a musician and see the world, you know, musically, do some of the biggest venues in the world, be with some of the greatest acts in the world and, you know, do screenplays with some of the biggest artists and stuff like that. But this tops everything.
Speaker 2:This is my biggest world tour I've ever had these last um because it's called out a paycheck of the heart, my friend it helps the people, you know, and it helps anybody who's going through it. It helps me, um, it sustained me and you know, it's allowed me to know that. You know, life is so much bigger than what you see in your face. Um, and you know, losing my parents and being a parent was probably really it was a hard deal for me, but, like, it allows me to be here for my kids. So I always have like a, you know, I find a why, like I always feel like there has to be a why in everybody's life of why they do what they do.
Speaker 2:Mine is because I feel like I'm living for my family. You know, like, when it's all said and done, all the medical and technical stuff that we're coming up on that I may not see in my lifetime, I'm involved in these boards, involved in these talks, involved in this new innovation. I may not get to see it, but you know, god forbid anything happens to my children or their children. There's something you know, there was something left that their father was a part of, to say, you know, hey, like those are those, this is more for my family, for my kids, kids and their kids.
Speaker 2:And you know, hopefully I get to see that, of course. And, um, you know, life is what it is and I always say they told me I'll be going at 24. They told me I wouldn't have, I wouldn't live past 24. Um, I'm 42. So I flipped it on his head and I told him I wouldn't have kids. I got two little ones.
Speaker 2:So I beat that, I had cancer, I beat that, and so I'm just waiting for the next battle and transplant is on the list. But to be honest, I'm just scared to go after another one because FSGS still is a rare disease, disease doesn't have any type of medication for it and I don't know, mentally, just being transparent, if I can take losing another kidney again and going back on dialysis. Yeah, I just think mentally that'll be very heavy for me. Um, I'm strong mentally, but it's like I'm strong in knowing what I'm facing, I guess. Guess you could say and I'm still human, you know, and so like, and I'm, you know, I'm not ashamed as an, you know, I'm not ashamed to say I'm scared and that it's just a scary thought to think of losing something again.
Speaker 2:So um, I'm taking it taking it one day at a time. Uh, I have a lot of doctor friends, so I'm conversating with all my doctor, nephrologists and surgeons and getting mixed reviews and you know, everybody wants me to go get a kidney and I have doctors lined up to cut me open.
Speaker 4:Of course, Transplantation is very different. I know you mentioned. I think you said 2010 was your first right, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So now in days in 2025,. I recently worked at a transplant center. I worked at Cleveland Clinic and transplantation for kidneys and I don't want to downplay it, but out of all the transplantations it's so it goes very smooth. The patients are only in the ICU for a day or two and they're on the floor and they leave home within the week. It's, it's amazing, it's amazing.
Speaker 2:That's how it was. Everything else is a was everything else. Yeah, I was home in three days. Uh, my brother was good. He's doing well, actually still um oh good more of just. I don't think it's the process, I think it's what happens after. I think is what yep you know there's a loss.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's still a loss, right, and there's a loss, yeah, it's still a loss, right. And there's a saying, dave. It says that the only minor surgery, the only easy surgery is the one that's not happening to me.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right, right. And you know you got to understand too. I've been under the knife extensively. Yeah, that big surgery in 2019, I think that's that mentally.
Speaker 2:When I woke up, I couldn't talk for an hour because that's as much. They had to put me under twice because I came to in seven hours and they had to put me back under and I think when I came out I couldn't talk and I was like mumbling for an hour and the guy kept saying I was calling for somebody and when I could finally talk, the first words were like where's my wife and kids? That's what I was trying to say the whole time. And so I think, like that surgery I don't know mentally like kind of messed me up a little bit Like, but I know, I know that, um, soon I do want a kidney because, like I said before, I like saying more yeses than nos and, um, I feel like my kid is at 13 and 12 and a wife who stuck around deserve more yeses than noes.
Speaker 2:Um, we've been blessed and I've been able to, you know, provide for my family and that was also a big thing for me as a dialysis patient. You know work and just, oh yeah, hard money. You know it's tough, you know, living off of SSI and not being able to like provide for my family, and I'm not saying this as a macho thing, but just as a husband, as a man, you know provide for my wife and kids, absolutely.
Speaker 2:What am I here for? You know what I mean. So it's been a big thing to be able to provide. So for me, being able to sustain and provide for my family. Now I kind of feel like I just want to be in a position to do that and I never want to be out of that position. So, like translating moving parts, I have to sit down for a little bit and not be able to work and move around and move around the way I do, or stuff like that. But I know it's something that I want to be able to say more yeses, and I know in the long run it's the best thing for me. So I'm working towards it. I really am.
Speaker 2:I'm not, I'm not shying away. I'm being a punk about it right now, but we'll get. We'll get there and um, and that's it. I mean I just wake up every day and I thank God and I call every day a win. You know, wins only is my slogan. And the reason I say that it's because I feel like my mom. Before she died she was a Facebook queen and she put on Facebook one day. Thank you all for the love and support, but I know in the end I'm going to win. And this was four days before she passed away, so she was in her deathbed, literally telling people to call herself a winner, because she knew she was going to go see God in heaven.
Speaker 2:Now, that's why she knew she was a winner.
Speaker 2:So for my mom to be in her deathbed and call herself a winner from day forward. I never, I never knew what losing meant. Again, I don't know what losing is. I don't know how to spell it. I don't even know what it. I don't know what it is. If you ask me if I lost anything and I I don't know what that is, so I can't even I can't relate to what losing is, because every day I wake up one I've won. Every morning I wake up, I'm breathing, I'm walking, I have lights, we have a car, we have gas, my dogs have food, my family is eating. Like I'm winning a million times before I have coffee in the morning.
Speaker 2:So, that's literally my life, Like I live. People think it's like OD, but that's really like when you almost die every day. I don't, I don't know, I can't live for you. I just know how I live. You know, like every day, every step, every breath, every. I'm winning. I've won. I win 20 million times in five minutes, like I'm. That's just all I know, and so I try to push that on everybody I talk to that you won so many times. If you look at it like that, you're winning so you're helping.
Speaker 1:You're helping a whole lot of other people to win, and you know it's important because as nurses or clinicians um, you know we can teach and we can talk a lot about some of these things. It's a totally different story when you talk to somebody who's walked the walk and to really feel like somebody gets you in a way that nobody else can, and so you know your role is so powerful.
Speaker 2:Thank you, yeah, just living that sitting in that chair. I ask patients, I ask people all the time in my talks. You know, for perspective, all right, I sit down and do three and a half hours of dialysis every other day. I put 15 gauges needles in my arm every other day. So if you add that up for a week, sometimes it goes out to like 13 or 14 hours a week of dialysis. So 20 was set up and sit down.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's what I tell people. So I ask people who would give me 20 hours of their week, raise your hands, and that's when the room gets the quietest. Everybody just kind of like nah dog, I'm not giving you 20 hours, and I understand why they won't, because everybody has life. But then what I make them see is workers and healthcare people. I say you don't give me 24 hours, you're good, you're fine. I don't give 24 hours, I'm gone. So those are the people you're dealing with. When you're sitting down and treating these people. You're dealing with people that if they don't come here, they don't show up to nothing else after that. So keep that in mind of what they're mentally facing when they're sitting in these chairs.
Speaker 1:We've talked to people who say that. I recently talked to a patient who said the same thing. I just don't know that I want to keep doing this. I'm ready to let nature take its course.
Speaker 2:And it's hard, I sat there on a Friday evening evening left and said bye to my patient friends and came back monday and two, three are gone and no one can tell me where they're gone, because the hippo laws and they just don't show up anymore and so it's like when is it my turn, you know? Because?
Speaker 2:I'm sitting here doing the same exact treatment as them. When is it my turn? When does it go down the line and come get me? So I just try to put that perspective to the other side. That doesn't see, it doesn't understand what dialysis is, and I'll also try to keep our patients living as best as they can.
Speaker 3:Is it easy? No, will it ever be easy?
Speaker 2:No, it won't. It's still hard for me to this day, even though my mentality is strong. I still, I'm still a human.
Speaker 2:It gets hard. There are days where there's horrible treatments and there's days where I just gotta say no and I can't get up and I can't take you to taekwondo today, son, I'm sorry. Or babe, I can't make it to the dance this week. I'm I'm hurting. But I still try to say more yeses than no's at the end of the day, and I love that. I just chalk it up and I say live the treat another day, and that's it. Then we go to the next and so that's life.
Speaker 1:I wonder if you could go back knowing what you know now. If you could go back and talk to your 15, 16 year old self, what would you tell yourself?
Speaker 2:You're going to be all right.
Speaker 2:You're going to be, good and your life's not over. Yeah, I mean, of course we all would like to change things that we've done in our past. You know, I probably could have. There's so many things I could have done right, could have ate better if I knew, could, you know, change my diet or a little bit, and did all these things. But knowing what I had at some point FSGS, my kidneys would have failed eventually at some point. But I would tell myself now, knowing what I know now in the life I've lived, I would tell myself you're still gonna do great things. It's just and and it's not your plan like I would let go earlier.
Speaker 2:It took me to my mid-30s to learn how to let go yeah and just let things naturally happen instead of trying to control things, because because I with dialysis, I had no control, so I would try to control everything else that I could because I took so much from me.
Speaker 2:It took so much time from me. I had no control of nothing. Someone was telling me when I had to be at treatment, telling me when I had doctor's appointments, telling me when I needed like I had no control in my life. So I felt like anything I can have control of, I would grasp and try to control the narrative of everything, and that drives you crazy, or more than anything. So I had to learn to like let go and just live, just let it happen.
Speaker 1:We can't always control the outcome. What we can control is what you know our actions. What do we do? It's easier said than done in the moment, though.
Speaker 2:It is hard, but I just learned how to respond. Respond to things instead of overreact to it. I just respond a different way to things. So if I know something's going to hit me hard and I'm going to go through it, I have to go through it. I feel it, I cry about it, I be pissed off about it, I go through it and then I say all right how do we get through now?
Speaker 2:What's the plan? How do we get through it? And that has allowed me to be successful in business. It's allowed me to be successful in my family life, it's allowed me to be successful in my professional life, and so I don't see me changing that mentality at all, and the only thing that I'm still learning to do now is to be a dad every day, just learn.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a role. We take that job, we take that title with us into the eternities.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's my favorite title that I have is a dad, and that's really something that I you know that every day I'm learning you know, I got a little 12 year old girl.
Speaker 1:So you know, daddy, buckle up.
Speaker 2:I got a little little princess.
Speaker 1:My baby girl just got engaged a few months ago. So yeah, it happens. You gotta, you gotta. You gotta enjoy every little minute, Cause who they go by fast.
Speaker 2:Nobody pulling up. Nobody pulling up here, no time soon. You know, you gotta keep your imposing posture daddy. Oh yeah, trust me, everybody knows who Jayla's daddy Everybody and her taekwondo older brother. So she's double booked. There you go.
Speaker 1:What do you most wish that somebody?
Speaker 2:would have told you when you were first diagnosed? Um, that's always a tough question for me because all patients are different. So the way that we respond and the way that our bodies work for whatever type of things, it's no one thing that no one could have told me that would have changed anything. I just think that I just wish earlier on, someone would have told me that. How can I say this?
Speaker 2:I always struggle with this question because there's so many things I wish I knew. But if someone came up to me and said to me hey, david, you know, dialysis is something that can, depending on how I responded to it, you know, I wish somebody would have told me that your days are going to be hard, but you know, your willpower has to be a little stronger. You know, I learned hard when it came to that and it did get said to me at some point, but it happened way later in treatments when I was like really doing bad. I really don't know what I wish someone would have said to me, because it's just like the way that it all turned out. What could have altered the way everything went later on? I don't know. I really don't know, like I don't know what anyone could have said to me. Because I was young, I thought I knew.
Speaker 1:I wonder, because sometimes you know, as clinicians, sometimes we educate, we're real good at educating and sometimes that's not what somebody needs. Sometimes what somebody needs is to have that validation that yeah, it does suck and but your life isn't over, it's going to be okay.
Speaker 2:I love that one and I was told that you know, like no one made it out to be roses for me, you know, and I think because I was so depressed and brash in the beginning, people didn't mind letting me know the real. And I wanted to know the real. I didn't. I would tell them, like stop lying to me, like tell me straight up, like what's gonna happen to me? You're my doctor. Like dude, don't come here and like sugarcoat me with medication, tell me what's gonna happen. That's when he was like well, you'll be dead by next year if you don't. And I was like okay, like let me know that. So I either.
Speaker 2:I made a decision to go out with a bang. And when he told me I was gonna be dead in a year, I made a haircut appointment, cut my hair in a mohawk and I just was like living this year. I thought I was gonna go out, like all right, let's just go out. All right, I was in performing all over the place. I had a catheter my neck be doing straight shows, running through the crowd, like my arm over my shoulder, like this, performing all night. I just didn't. I thought I would be gone and, um, you know, god had other plans you don't get out that, you don't get a pass that quickly.
Speaker 2:Huh he's got work for you to do apparently.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah purpose for me, so do you know of any advice that you would recommend giving someone that young um with a diagnosis as what you endured, any like words of wisdom that you think that would be very empowering and very meaningful for a young patient?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would tell them don't blame yourself, because a lot of patients blame themselves. Don't blame yourself. There's nothing you did wrong, you know. I'm sure if you had a choice you wouldn't give yourself a disease, I mean. So don't blame yourself. Number one. Number two write down your goals and ambitions. Write them down and scratch them off. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:When I got my mind right, I started to write down things that I wanted to do. Like there's always, like you'll always see one of these around me, like I have hundreds of them all over the house. You'll see these little books and I just write down like something I want in my head and then when I get it, you'll see like lines through whatever. So I would say write down your goals and ambitions. Write down your goals and ambitions and don't be afraid to tackle them. Give yourself a reasonable goal that you can obtain, even if it's the smallest thing. Give yourself that goal and when you obtain it, celebrate it like it's the biggest thing in the world, like celebrate it like you just won a championship and then move on. You know what I mean. That way it allows you to feel that you've accomplished something in your fight. So if your goal is to walk two miles. You walk the two miles. Scratch that off and celebrate it like you ran a marathon and then write it down the next one, and the bigger.
Speaker 2:The more you start scratching off, the bigger your dreams start to get Right. So, like and then the last thing I would say was find you a support system that you can really depend on. Cut the fat in your life of people that you can't, and that's the hardest part for people is to cut people off sometimes.
Speaker 2:But man does it free, you like, yes, yeah, not pouring into your life if they're not positive in your life, if they're not doing anything but hindering you, family, friends, I don't care who it is yeah everybody. People know they can't come around me. No negative energy I they can't, they know better like don't, don't bring that over to the house, because they know yeah, I gotta go.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying. Like, this is a peaceful home, so you know, and just find peace in yourself, man, really, and you know, start healing with you. Don't lean on, you know, heal within yourself, um, and face those things, man, and you got to learn to face those things that you're scared of. You know like I face them, man. I cry. Right, I'm not scared, I'm a grown man, but I cry like a baby when I need to yeah, you know I grow fit.
Speaker 1:When I need to, I get it out, and then did you know when you cry and you're sad you, what comes in your tears are toxins and when you cry, tears like you're laughing endorphins. They can find endorphins in your tears Very healthy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I cry, I'm a, I cry. Um, I'm not ashamed of it, but those were. I would tell people, man, just don't blame yourself. Conquer your goal, make goals for yourself, conquer, celebrate each one like you won the World Series and move on to the next one and have a great support system. Those are the biggest things I can. If you don't have a support system, you know, find one.
Speaker 1:There's a community full of people that would love to be by your side. Yeah, absolutely. The peers like NKF peers program has been really helpful for a lot of our folks too. Yeah, what about? Caroline has a question for you. She's asking what insight do you have from your kids or your wife on how they can best support you and how can you support them?
Speaker 2:You know the caregiver. The caregiver is probably one of the most underrated positions in the world. I always say that I'm the one that put the needles in, but my whole house does dialysis. The way that everyone moves, you know I'm the dad of the house. So I'm the Uber driver, I'm the dance dad, I'm the taekwondo daddy. You know I take pictures of everything. So if daddy is not able to go, we try to find a way for me to be able to do it later or whatever. So the whole house does treatment, down to the dogs. Everybody suffers, right.
Speaker 2:So I feel like my kids insight is that I hope what they're getting from this is resilience. I hope they're getting from it to fight and to respond to adversity a certain way. I hope my wife is getting from it that. You know that there's strength there. You know, and because of her strength as much as how much of a superhero she is for me that I try to give it back as much as I can. Their insight is they've seen me on dialysis all their life, you know so when I didn't have a kidney is when they were born and when they were old enough to understand what's going on, I was back on dialysis.
Speaker 2:So they've never not seen me. You know hospitals or surgeries, or daddy has to go to a procedure I'll be back in two days or you know. They've never not seen that. But there's also seen daddy, seen daddy working with big artists. They've also seen daddy talking on stage.
Speaker 2:There's a line 50,000 people pays off. We traveled and seeing daddy performing all over the world and there's also so they've seen both sides of it. So I hope they see what the fight gets you in the middle of the storm, how you can still be, you know, still be. And so for me, I hope they just, I hope that embeds into their brains and know that the strength that they give me, I try to give back by showing them that I will never give up and it's primarily because of you guys, right, and so you know, just living they're a major part of my healing and major part of why I do what I do, because I really don't know if it would be the same. If it was different, I really don't know where I would be.
Speaker 1:Honestly, yeah, yeah Well. I think they're really juicy lessons there for everybody Never giving up, setting your, setting your goals and you shooting high, going after it. Work for it. You deserve it. The people around you deserve that, and I tend to find we get what we look for. If we look for good things, they're typically there. If you want to focus and look for the bad things, they're there too. Thinking about them doesn't make them go away either.
Speaker 2:I'm from a small town in New Jersey called Highland Park, New Jersey.
Speaker 1:It's about a mile.
Speaker 2:It's exit nine off of the Turnpike. I lived in Perth, amboy, with my mom for a little bit. Before that my brother went to Jersey City State College. We've been all through Jersey. I'm a jersey boy through and through. Um, I moved down to georgia about two years ago, um, because in jersey also too, to get you a nice little house or something, it's like a million dollars. So we uh, you know, just to get you a nice two, three bedroom or something. So we found I came down here, had a house built and just wanted to do more and provide for my family more, like I said earlier, and was able to do it down here a little better. So grateful for that. And so now just living here and seeing what the next move is and where the wind takes me next. So we'll see.
Speaker 1:Well, David, we're cheering you on. I think about you when I ask my Alexa to play me some David Rush. I think about you sending you some good chi your way and appreciate you taking the time to be with us. Yeah, does anybody else have anything else they want to ask?
Speaker 3:Yeah, any questions. Of course, I don't have a question, David. I just want to say that your story is truly inspirational. It is very beautiful. The way that you laid everything out for us is beautiful.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:I am on your side, I'm cheering you on, thank you. Thank you so much, and you know.
Speaker 1:I got a guy you need to meet. You need to connect with Dr Thomas Wimes. Have you heard of him?
Speaker 2:Dr Thomas, that name sounds very familiar.
Speaker 1:Where is he?
Speaker 2:from.
Speaker 1:We'll talk offline. Thomas Wimes, he's out of UC Santa Barbara. I'll introduce you because I think he might have some things that can be helpful for you. He's doing some incredible research specifically on polycystic kidney disease. But the inflammatory pathways that drive the progression of kidney disease, which obviously focal segmental glomerulosclerosis when you have that inflammation pathway, that's a big part of that too. So yep and it's all nutritional based. So, yeah, I'll share with you. I'll stop the recording.
Speaker 2:Thank you, guys, for everything you guys are doing too as well. Um, you know, it's a community that is, uh, thriving forward. Lately, the kidney community is kind of blew up um a little bit more now, so there's a little more eyes on us.
Speaker 2:So these groups and these programs are helping patients like me to have an opportunity um in in life and we're getting a little light shined on us now. So what I do and all the accolades and stuff like that, and you know I, I look at it as like it's not like work for me and it's not a head thing for me. It doesn't.
Speaker 3:I'm not like I don't know how to explain it.
Speaker 2:Like we go places and people. It's weird. People want to take pictures and stuff like that and I appreciate it, but that's not what I'm in it for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's your life's purpose. Is what it sounds like to me? Yeah, so like.
Speaker 2:I'm grateful. I'm grateful for these communities and these groups for what they're doing, cause it's a special part for me. I take it very personal and whatever accolades come with it or whatever, it's great, it's cool, I appreciate it, but whatever is going to change for the people in the community is really what's most important. So thank you guys so much for the opportunity to talk to you and continue to do great work, and you have my support in whatever you guys are doing.
Speaker 1:So oh, thank you so much. Hey, if people have questions, if people see this and they have questions or they want to get a hold of you or follow you, how do they find you?
Speaker 2:um, if you go on linkedin, I'm on. I'm treating linkedin like, like instagram nowadays, so you can go on linkedin and that's how we know you're an old guy. Yeah, I had to switch over to the corporate side of things where my audience is.
Speaker 3:My audience is on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:Instagram got a little too ratchet for me so I had to step away. If you go on LinkedIn, you can go on LinkedIn and look up David Rush. I'm also on Facebook, david Rush. I have a podcast called the Wins Only Lifestyle Podcast. I've been slacking on it, but it is episodes like three seasons up there you can listen to to catch up. I have some new stuff coming, and then on YouTube is Wins Only Lifestyle as well, and then David Rush everywhere else. Instagram, david Rush Speaks. I'm not on there as much anymore because I had a little episode on there where I had a page hack so I fell back from it.
Speaker 2:But, like I said, linkedin and Facebook are my new places you can find me posting the most, and I'm doing a new YouTube series where I'm telling a kidney story in a cinematic way an artistic, in-depth way, instead of just saying, hey, I'm david, I have kidney disease, like I'm telling you, like, uh, I'm trying to shoot in a cinematic way to kind of get those points across in a way different from other. People are making it more like a documentary series or like a cinematic series than just me talking and telling people about my disease. I'm putting into like a story, so that's something you can check out. It. It's like three or four videos on there right now, but I'm building a catalog now. As you can see, all the junk in the back of stuff, nice and Apple Music and Spotify type in David Rush there's a whole bunch of albums that you can listen to and have fun with that as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, some of your songs I've listened to very inspirational People can listen to those on dialysis or working out or whatever.
Speaker 3:Or whatever Hip hop albums A bunch of stuff on there.
Speaker 2:So it's a taste for everybody, a little bit of flavor for everybody, so we're good.
Speaker 1:Well, david, thank you.