Good Neighbor Podcast: Union
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Residents of Northern Kentucky! Based in Union, KY....The Good Neighbor Podcast helps the residents of Northern Kentucky get to know local business owners as people. We allow the business owners and influencers in NKY to tell the stories of how they started their business and why. We hear about their families, their personal interests and why they love living in and serving resident of Northern Kentucky!
Good Neighbor Podcast: Union
The Man Who Fell Down an Elevator Shaft and Found His Purpose
Kris Duncan doesn't just inspect homes—he examines life through a lens few could imagine. As owner of Absolute Inspection Services in Northern Kentucky, Chris brings extraordinary perspective to his work, shaped by a journey that defies medical probability and showcases remarkable human resilience.
The path to becoming a home inspector wasn't straightforward for Kris. After years as a master electrician and time in the corporate world, his life took a dramatic turn when he fell down an elevator shaft while working in a commercial building. This accident led to the discovery of a brain tumor nestled between his brain stem and spinal cord. Six years of monitoring culminated in brain surgery, followed by a challenging recovery that would later serve as preparation for even greater challenges.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kris faced cascading health crises: liver failure requiring a transplant, followed by kidney failure necessitating dialysis. When searching for a kidney donor, the most unlikely match emerged—his wife Claudia, born and raised in Nicaragua, proved to be the perfect donor. This miracle, as Kris describes it, "proves we're all the same on the inside." His medical journey continued recently with surgery to remove a tumor wrapped around his spinal cord.
Throughout these extraordinary challenges, Kris maintained an unwavering faith that transformed his perspective. "Stop telling God how big your problems are and start telling your problems how big your God is," he shares, revealing the spiritual foundation of his resilience. Rather than asking "why me," Kris views each challenge as preparation for what lies ahead and focuses on finding purpose through adversity.
This profound life experience shapes how Kris approaches home inspection. He rejects the "deal killer" label sometimes applied to inspectors, focusing instead on providing objective information about safety and functionality. His goal is to help buyers and sellers make informed decisions while planning for future maintenance and repairs.
Listen to Kris's powerful story of survival, faith, and finding purpose through seemingly insurmountable obstacles. His journey reminds us that with the right mindset, anything is achievable—whether facing health crises or tackling life's everyday challenges.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Mike Murphy. Thank you, Charlie. Yes, I am Mike Murphy, host of the Good Neighbor Podcast. We are a podcast that brings local business owners here in Northern Kentucky to the residents so that you can get to know them as human beings, people rather than just a logo on a business card or the side of a truck.
Speaker 1:And so I've got somebody with me today, Chris Duncan from Absolute Inspection Services. He's a home inspector and you know, often these podcasts are about the business side of somebody and we dabble a little bit in the personal side. But in the pre-interview, I tell you Chris has such a powerful, compelling story. We'll spend some time on the business, but I got to tell you the personal stuff is just kind of mind-blowing and it's a story that needs to be told. And it's not just a story, it's multiple stories that I find quite amazing, and so if you're listening to this right now, I want you to listen to the whole thing. Okay, that's my ask of you right now, because it's a story worth listening to. So, having said all that, and a peaking interest, Chris, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you, yeah, thanks for that.
Speaker 1:You're welcome. You've got quite a story. I mean, there's a lot of personal stuff that the more I have learned about you, the more I want to know about you. The respect level has just skyrocketed and you and I have a few things in common. But I tell you, what you've shared with me in the pre-interview has been just amazing. So we'll spend a lot of time on that. We'll take as much time as we need to tell the story, because you've got a lot to say. But okay, let's set the personal stuff aside, Now that we've piqued that interest. Your business, Absolute Inspection Services. Tell me how did you get involved in home inspection?
Speaker 2:Okay, so I've been in business, started Absolute Home Inspection Services three years. It's coming up on three years in May. We'll get more into kind of like the compelling story on how this is going to flow. But one of the reasons I am a home instructor now is because of previous health issues. Like I said, we'll get more on that personal side later Right, but my background was a master electrician. I grew up my father was an electrician and had his own company.
Speaker 2:So I swore you know I happened to do summers and weekends with my father I was never going to be an electrician.
Speaker 1:That's not it.
Speaker 2:So by 24, I was a master electrician, right, that's the way it goes, that's how it happens. So anyway, I did that for 11, 12 years and I was doing commercial electric downtown Cincinnati and I enjoyed it quite a bit. But that led to other things meeting some corporate people in Cincinnati, which led to a transition into the corporate world where I took off the jeans and put on a suit and tie, okay, and got into the corporate world and had a couple of departments and I really enjoyed the corporate world as well. But then once again, times changed. Covid hits, you know, my kind of jobs go away and so I'm no longer there. And then health issues came into play and then I kind of had to do a reset a few years ago and decided to become a home inspector. Ok, so I don't know if you want to dive into that part now or we can touch on it later.
Speaker 1:Tell you what let's, let's, let's put a pin in the why and everything, but you became a home inspector. So here you are. You're a home inspector thing, but you became a home inspector. So here you are, you're a home inspector, and a lot of the people that I know know you as a home inspector. You've helped them immensely. Let's just talk about how you do that. So, from the standpoint of you professionally, what is your, your methodology, your viewpoint on home inspect, home inspection and how you help people your viewpoint on home inspection and how you help people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so to me, first off, I think sometimes home inspections, as we talked about previously, gets kind of a bad rap. Sometimes a home inspector can get labeled as a deal killer, and it's a complete misconception. I believe that the role of the home inspector is to try to help people get into home and to be completely objective on an inspection. So instead of, uh, completely focusing, I guess, as the home inspector, trying not to focus just on deficiencies and prove my worth of why I'm there and you know, fail, fail, fail, because it's not like that at all. Um, a first of a home inspection does not pass fail, so that can take some of the pressure off for a first-time home buyer. A home inspection is not pass fail, so that can take some of the pressure off for a first time home buyer.
Speaker 2:A home inspection is based on the transaction and what I'm focusing on is safety and functionality. Okay, because you're trying to protect the client on their purchase. Now we refer to code and building codes and certain things like that, but it is not a code pass fail test. A home inspection is not pass fail. It is completely up to the homeowner whether they want to pursue purchasing the property or not after getting a report back from a home inspector. So I look at it as a job of the home inspector is to inform the client of the issues with the home, but also to look at it like, okay, this is an issue, but you can do this to remediate this is okay. And it's also to age systems and let them know like this system is this old and the expected lifespan is this many years. So now you can at least say, okay, I can budget for repairs in the future, rather than just. The whole idea is to inform my client of what they're purchasing, okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, good, so you're, you're striving to present a picture of reality. Yeah, okay, and people do with that information what they will. You're just there to give that unbiased perspective of what somebody is buying or selling.
Speaker 2:That's exactly it, with the focus of safety and functionality.
Speaker 1:Okay. So once upon a time I was one of those people that looked at home inspectors as the devil. People that looked at home inspectors as the devil. You're sent to screw up the deal that we're all hoping we can put together as quickly as possible, get to the closing table with no problems. However, it really truly is in everybody's best interest to know the reality. Interest to know the reality, and I had kind of a shift in perspective happened to me a few years ago. That was, I kind of understood I can't remember who it was that explained to me how I could look at home inspection services through a different lens, and that is rather than just have a home inspector come in when I'm doing a real estate transaction and I'm laying in bed at night worried that they're going to come screw up the deal.
Speaker 1:I realized it was in my best interest, before I put my home on the market, to go to a home inspector that I trusted and say, okay, I'm going to sell this home this spring, put together a full, detailed report on what it is I'm putting on the market, what am I selling. And when I did that, I had somebody, I had a home inspector come to me and say, man, oh man, this is a beautiful home, well put together, well built. However, here are some things. Here are some things that you need to be aware of, and it was, you know, boom, boom, boom, and I was grateful in that moment, like, okay, I get to address this before I put the home on the market so that when I do sell it, it's not a surprise to me at that moment, it's not a surprise to the buyer. I have a much higher likelihood of selling this home than if I had waited until an inspector looked at it while we were all trying to get to the closing table.
Speaker 2:You're exactly right, mike, you hit the nail on the head. A pre-listing inspection, majority of people don't get them and I don't know if they're not informed to get up, I don't think they think about it or maybe, yeah, just not even aware. And I have found too that the majority of homeowners you know they, especially if they've been a homeowner and they've made this home they think they're selling the best home, they think there's nothing wrong with it and of well, and they made this time. They think they're selling the best home, they think there's nothing wrong with it, right, and of course, they're going to list it. They're going to want the top ballot for that home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and oftentimes, when an inspection report comes back from the potential buyer, they're devastated by the amount of work that's done and they're like, oh, I'm not going to take this much off, I don't want to make these concessions. Yeah. So I do think it's wise. If you're wanting to get top dollar you you know at the market value for your home, you need to go to the table with a seller knowing exactly what you're selling, because the buyer's going to come prepared for exactly what they're buying. So why should you be surprised as well Sometimes if you have a pre-inspection done, the buyer may accept your inspection report and waive getting their own.
Speaker 2:They may still get their own and compare notes. I've had some where I've just taken the inspection report because I know who the inspector was. I reviewed it and then I just made sure that the requested changes were made. So I think it's just a fantastic idea. If you're going to sell your home and you want to get to the top of the market value which you think it's worth, you need to have an inspector get through it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I know to some people it might seem like you know why would I do that? I'm going to have to pay for that inspection out of pocket, Correct, but think of it You're about to engage in one of the biggest transactions of your life. What you're going to pay that inspector to help you get to the closing table quicker is a drop in the bucket. It really shouldn't even register on the scale of of overall cost, because it's so, it's so valuable.
Speaker 2:It's a low percentage. I think a lot of the drawback is it's out of pocket money, but a lot of times everything's financed, and sometimes it hurts when it comes directly out of your pocket. Your average home inspection, though, is only five hundred dollars, and when I say only your average home is what? A quarter million plus so five hundred dollars compared to protect them, you know a quarter million dollar investment at least, even if you don't make concessions or that doesn't do anything to the purchase.
Speaker 2:You're getting report of the story of the home, so that, after you move in, you know, you know. You know the age of your appliances, you know the age of all your systems. You know, like, what potential hazards could come to a home down the road. Not just, hey, worrying about a pass fail, which it's not, it's also a book of information that, three years in, you know your hot water heater stops working. Well, oh yeah, we knew that. We can still refer back to the report and like, oh yeah, he said it had that. Three years in, you know your hot water heater stops working. Well, oh yeah, we knew that you can still refer back to the report and like, oh yeah, he said it had about three years left. You can budget for repairs. You can be more. I guess knowledge is power, whether you're buying or selling, the more everybody knows about the home, the happier everybody's going to be.
Speaker 1:It's reality, it's information. It's information that you need. You shouldn't bury your head in the sand, whether you're selling or buying. Yeah, it's in everybody's best interest to embrace the home inspection process Treat it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would advise you treat it for what it should be and the idea is to inform everybody involved with the house. It's not to find deficiencies and try to tear a house down or scare somebody from buying a home. It's to inform somebody like here's a home, here's observations we found. Here's some things you can do for it.
Speaker 1:Have you ever found something that's like way better than code and you're like, damn, this is great. Oh, it happens quite a bit Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you can tell, and you know you can tell just good craftsmanship, good workmanship, versus there's a lot of flips now and you see a lot of things that are not up to code.
Speaker 1:They're just trying to get through it so they can get their money yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's big, big business right now Well, it has been over the last few years is the flips, and a lot of the flips come in. They hit a good target market for pricing for first-time homebuyers. A lot of first-time homebuyers are in that market or that price range of flips, and so they're the ones that need protected the most, because they are the most scared. This is their first purchase, this is one of the biggest things of their life, and now a lot of the homes that they're being looked at are ones that could they were flipped. Now there's great flips. I'm not putting a bad mark on many flips. However, there's bad ones, and we know a lot of times the intention of the flip is to get through things, so it's to protect a first-time home buyer on things of that nature as well.
Speaker 1:So you're helping people that are vulnerable. You know that can least afford to make a mistake, a misstep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and particularly I know to focus on first time homebuyers, but those are the ones that need the home inspection the most, because those are the ones that are. They're just so nervous about the entire process and you know they have a great real estate agent. They're walking them through the whole thing. But if you can at least hold their hand through the what they know that they're purchasing whether good made or indifferent, if they just know what they're purchasing you can help take some of that anxiety away from them okay.
Speaker 1:So I think we've done a good job of kind of explaining, you know, the benefits of a home inspection service. Uh, I want to kind of touch briefly before we get into another part of your story that I find so intriguing. Let's talk about family. So I've not met anyone in your family. I've not met your spouse. I don't know much about them. So I'm learning along with the listeners. Tell me about your family.
Speaker 2:Oh, our family is amazing. So my wife, claudia we've been married back in August was five years, so a little over five years now. Children-wise, like I said, empty nesters kind of in a way. They're still at that age where they come and go, but we have four children. I've got three stepchildren and daughters. Ernesto is our oldest, he is 26. Let me make sure I get it. No, I think he turned 27. I've got three stepchildren and daughter. So Ernesto is our oldest, he is 26. Okay, and let me make sure, no, I think about he turned 27. I got to get ages, right, he's 27 now. So Ernesto is 27. And he's a electrician as well, like me.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, of course, right, you just can't escape it, you cannot. So what a beautiful thing about it is working together thing about it is working together. Now he's a, you know, he's a journeyman, looking to get his masters and working with him side by side on work. I get now that's you can't beat, that, you just really can't right. And then, uh, monica is uh, the middle daughter and she got engaged, uh, last week. Oh, congratulations, yeah, monica, her and matt. So, yes, she's 25, just recently engaged. And then we have the youngest boy, rg RGO. He's 23, and he's still kind of figuring out things, doing his thing, working. He lives in Indiana. I don't get to see him as much, but he hangs out. Then we have the youngest, autumn, my daughter. She's 22, getting returned 23 in May, okay, and so, yeah, she just got her first what I call big girl job. She finished up college last year and just recently got hired Digital marketing. That was her major in business management.
Speaker 2:She just recently congratulations to her too started her job. So yes, four children in the twenties, I would imagine we're going to have a lot of grandbabies coming years. So, yeah, no, that's a family and it's yeah, I guess I love it okay.
Speaker 1:Well, you seem very proud of them. I am because, yeah, your face shines when you talk about them smiling the whole time. That's a good thing yeah, well it's.
Speaker 2:Yes, they haven't families important?
Speaker 1:yes, well, you know, you've, you've got this uh wonderful family supporting you, and it's a good thing because, um, the part of the story that I've alluded to earlier, uh, multiple stories I don't know how we really approach it, but there's a lot to talk about, a lot to unpack, and it's all around your personal health and I don't really even know where to start. But I just want to make sure that we get to talk about it. Okay, we can't tell all of it, because we'd be here, you know, all evening, but, however, I want to make sure that we give people, um an understanding of everything you've gone through and how it relates to um, your, your faith, you're, you know, appreciative of everyone that's kind of supported you and, um, yeah, so let's, let's get into that.
Speaker 1:Um, I, I know there's an elevator shaft involved yes because, as we talked, you know the the story keep it kept going backwards and backwards. You know you kept stepping me back and that started this way, and that started because of this. Yes, but the elevator shaft is kind of where I'm starting, so let's start there. What happened?
Speaker 2:Okay, so I guess that kind of started the well, I would say, like where my first health issue started, the first time I found out that I had a health issue and the first time I found out that I had a health issue and the first time I realized god was protecting me. Okay, um. So yeah, I forget the year I fell into the elevator shaft because I had the surgery. I had the surgery in 2006, so this must have been right around 2000. Okay, um, I fell into an elevator shift the electrician. I was in a commercial building. Uh, we had a dark outage.
Speaker 2:Whole building was out, okay, and we had a freight elevator. Hit the door in to find the door. We thought the freight was on this floor. Apparently it wasn't. Yeah, so you have to pull the door in. I went to take a half step in to step in the elevator. When I realized the elevator was not there, I couldn't catch myself. I fell. Good thing it was only two floors down. Um, I landed on top of the elevator shaft, I busted some ribs open, hit my head and I severed a couple ribs.
Speaker 2:That was really painful because falling into an elevator shaft only happens in the movies it really does and in the dark and landing on top of it, right, not knowing where you're going to land. I mean, dude, I don't think I had time to think about if I was going to hit it. Just I felt the hit, yeah, and then I pulled out of it. I climbed up a condo, I pulled myself up, I was yanking me up, pulled back out and I dressed in red. That's incredible and I'm like, well, don't tell nobody, it's embarrassing. So I stayed for another three hours at work because I wasn't bleeding. I said I'm up on my head and I'm just kind of can't breathe. Then I went to the hospital. All right, I was yeah.
Speaker 2:Anyway, three hours later, yeah, so long story short on that, because I'd hit my head. They got, they did a CAT scan and they told me that they said they thought I had a brain aneurysm and it's more testing to happen. Couldn't find out. They're like no, no brain aneurysm. But that's the good news. The bad news is you have a brain tumor. So what they found at that time is I had a floating mass right between my brain stem and my spinal cord Now non-cancerous. However, they're like it's a very delicate area. It's small enough. It's about the size of a tip of a eraser or a pencil. Okay, very small, but if it moves or attaches it's used. Now I wasn't having symptoms either. So they found this because I felt I had no idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, for six years I had to get an MRI Just to monitor Every quarter, two of them. You had to slide through, pull the cage of your head. They're intimidating, but you get used to them because they're really. They land there and they pull the cage of your head and then they pull you out and they give you a shot of the contrast back in. So I had to do that every quarter for like six years and that's when I'm.
Speaker 2:During that period I started having anxiety issues because I'm walking around with the unknown of this floating tumor in the back of my head and it led to some anxiety issues, which led to some panic attacks understandably so, by the way. It's just the unknowns, it just wore me. It really did um, but anyway, after six years did um without symptoms. One of the mris come back and they're like hey, we got to do surgery. It attached to your brainstem. Once again like no symptoms. I didn't know. I'm like, well, good, let's do this, because I just it was an answer. You know it was an answer.
Speaker 2:So I had a surgery done and I was in the sixth. It was successful. There were some hiccups after the surgery, got meningitis in my spinal cord fluid. It almost wiped me out. I had to get back to the hospital. That was another few months stay. I got through all that. It was a really, really rough recovery Getting back on my feet, learning to do everything, motor skills, a lot of different things. I was able to do it. I didn't know at the time to prepare me for other things.
Speaker 1:That was just the beginning yeah, because there's more to come yes, yes, that was the beginning.
Speaker 2:That was me at the time, not knowing you know you always. What am I going through this? Why am I going through this?
Speaker 2:yeah well now, I know it was preparing me for what was coming up later. Okay, so the beauty of after that surgery, too, is it eliminated the anxiety. So, because of you know, I wasn't walking around thinking I was just going to fall over. I survived the surgery, I got through the surgery, I'm back, I'm healthy and no more pending attacks. So that's great. Everything is going well Then, I guess. So that's great, everything is going well. Um then, I guess, I guess we just refer to that because that was in 06 not just prepared me, so I stayed healthy since. But then, you know, 2020, hits go with hits. Everything's going crazy. Um, I just left my job in the corporate world because the whole world's shutting down, yeah, and I got really sick. I went to the urgent care and I was coughing blood and coming out my nose and little things. I felt horrible for a few months.
Speaker 1:So you took yourself to urgent care. You're just like hey, what's going on?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I felt bad and I was gaining a lot of weight. I was gaining a lot of weight. I'd gone my normal weight back then. I was a little heavier. My normal weight back then was probably 220. I'd swell up to about 240. I was gaining water weight, not realizing it because my liver was failing.
Speaker 2:Anyway, when I get an urgent care, that's when I go your liver's failing it's really, really bad. I was there, like I said, and three days before I went home, so they found out what the liver failing I'm at St E's for five weeks and they're just trying to get everything in order and I'm in and out, in and out, and it comes down to like, if I don't get a liver, you know I'm expiring, and so, and it comes down to like, if I don't get a liver, you know my I'm expiring and so you know the miracle, god. So I end up getting. I end up getting a liver within 48 hours and you know that right in itself is the first, another miracle amongst the many that I've been through, and so when that happens, I go through the surgery. Surgery of that is. That is success. So now we're in October. I'm sorry, we're in November of 2020.
Speaker 2:Oh, let me backpedal again. I know there's another little caveat to part of this story too. So when COVID hit and all that, and one of the reasons I kind of stepped away from work was that's when I took my father and mom into my house because my dad was in the hospice. He was passing away from cancer, and so I moved them into my house in the hospice, so I'd just done that. They'd been at the house and then all of a sudden, I'd get sick during the same period, so I ended up going to the hospital in September. I'm in the hospital for a month and my dad passed away, so I missed all of that during COVID, and then that was.
Speaker 2:He passed October to November. I had to have my transplant. I got lucky and got a transplant and so that transplant was in November and I come out of transplant and it worked and you know I just feel better it worked. But then comes the other news, like okay, success, but now your kidneys are failing.
Speaker 1:Okay, so right there you've. You've woken up. You've had the issue with the liver, yes, and what's the next thing that hits you?
Speaker 2:so, yeah, so I go, I wake up, um, this is november from the liver transplant and it's okay, it's a success and I already feel better because the last few days monthly up to the liver transplant, it's a success. I already feel better because the last few days monthly up to the liver transplant, they're putting fentanyl patches on me and I drugged up. I don't remember a lot.
Speaker 1:Did you have the jaundice? Were you yellow and stuff? Oh yes.
Speaker 2:I looked like a lizard. I had yellow eyes, I picked up a lot of weight from the water and everything. You didn't look like you. Not one bit. It was bad. I got pictures of it.
Speaker 2:I got some pictures before and after, right, yeah, okay. But so now I have, yeah, so liver's fine, but my kidneys, because of the damage that done, from the liver failing and the surgery of getting a new one, and now my kidneys are not functioning properly. All right, so I'm on dialysis. At this point I wake up. I'm on dialysis Now, I'm still in the hospital and this is COVID, rampant Now as I'm dealing with all this, that was the first five weeks. Was that sin? Then the surgery was done at UC and then I'm in recovery there. Now, you have to imagine, during COVID, there's no visitors, right, the rooms are, you're not. You don't get your own room, you're shared with other people, they're understaffed, the place is full. I mean, nobody knows what to do. It's COVID and I'm going through these transplants.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people were kind of making it up as they went and nobody really knew and it and the whole world's being shut down by unknowns.
Speaker 2:It's just a bunch of creatures.
Speaker 2:And I'm just laying in there in the middle of it, right? So, anyway, so it kind of made it a lot different. I guess a lot of thinking, because you lay there the whole time recovering without talking to nobody. Yeah, no TVs, no, nothing Anyway beyond that. So I'm on dialysis and everything. At that point I start to get better. They send me to another hospital called Encompass. That's more of a recovery hospital, because I have to learn better skills and different things. I'd learn to walk again. I don't think I told you about that point either. When I get out, they send me home. It's 103 days Now I go home and it's Christmas Eve.
Speaker 2:Really, yeah, it's Christmas Eve. Oh man, it's a part of the story too. I get home, it's blustery, snowing a little bit, super cold. I'm in a wheelchair, or no, the wheelchair's not there. I'm on a walker the wheelchair's not there. I ordered one. It's just inside the door. I didn't know that, but I had one step to get into the front door and I got my walker and I got to take that first step and I go down. It's me and my wife and my stepfather. Well, I can't get up. So they put a blanket on me, cover me up and they're trying to get me into the house. So I tell the joke. It's like I just spent 100 plus days in the hospital and it's like I'm in the desert looking at an oasis. I'm sitting on my front porch with a blanket on me, trying to get into my house. I'm so close, I'm so close. And so they realized that the wheelchair had arrived previously coming home and they were able to put the wheelchair together real quick and slide me into the wheelchair and get me into the house. Okay, but anyway, I just thought that was part of the little struggle to get into the house. I made it home and then the physical therapy and all that starts.
Speaker 2:Now I have these zero kidneys, so to speak, and I'm on dialysis four days a week that I have to go to. While I'm in all my physical therapy I'm learning to walk again. I'm going to dialysis in a wheelchair, in a walker. You know it's a lot, but during it the kidneys go to end-stage renal. So at this point it's eight and a half months in that I've been on dialysis and I've removed from my liver transplant. I have to have a kidney transplant. They're just not. They're dead. So I was because of the liver transplant I was able to go up the list for transplant eligibility calls some safety net program because one transplant caused the other one. But they're like you know, know, for the longevity of your life it would be much better to get a live donor versus your deceased donor. It's just a lot better for you.
Speaker 2:So at that point we talked about you know how do we find a donor? Let's get some people swabbed. You know, you look at, look at what's the website look like, setting up. You know we would put a whole together. So the first step is you start looking for a live daughter. So, you know, I'd asked a couple of family members, my daughter. And this is where, once again, the story just takes a turn. And this is why you know the faith in God and everything, just some things you can't explain. This is God's will, right? So my wife, claudia I talked about earlier she's born and raised in Nicaragua. I tell her she's having to get swabbed and I'm like there's no sense. Family members are swabbed. She insists on it and everything comes back. Well, she's the perfect match, mike, that's incredible, yeah, born and raised in Nicaragua.
Speaker 2:You're right, and who would have ever thought. No, it proves we're all the same on the inside, no matter what. And so, yes, I have her kidney. It's right in front here and it's a champion kidney. It's amazing. The best part of you it is, it is, yeah, she's got me with that one. So you know, just getting that, you know, I'm just so blessed you to be here, to have her. That her first, the willingness of her yeah, that's not talked about enough. The willingness of her, her sacrifice to give her kidney to me, yeah, but anyway, so you know, now I have her kidney and I'm on the recovery path.
Speaker 2:Then there's a hiccup after that when I get organ rejection. Now, my body's a chemistry lab. I've been through a lot. At this point, organ rejection is kind of crazy. They had to put many weird medicines to try to combat it. I ballooned to 290 pounds, wow, yeah, in like 11 days, right. And then they had to give that's crazy. Well, then they had to give me these water pills and water medicine that pulled all off the water, to pull it all off, and then I ended up losing that whole 90 pounds in like seven days. My skin was so tight it felt like like you stretch a balloon. Yeah, you couldn't touch me. It felt like my skin was burning, it was just so bizarre.
Speaker 1:It doesn't seem like the human body would be able to withstand that drastic of a change over such a short period oh, double X clothes wasn't getting on me.
Speaker 2:They know shoes fit, come, put socks on. I mean, it was only for that two week period while my body was going through this organ rejection and the medicines they were giving me, yeah, and then it was. At that time I decided to be coming home and specter.
Speaker 1:Right yeah, why wouldn't you?
Speaker 2:You know, that's like you know an awful joke with you know, my wife. It's you know I'm like, okay, it's like you know I've been through all this but I'm going to be okay. I just, you know, I've gone through so much and the fact that we're still living, it's like it'll be okay. I mean, what can you take from me now? Right, I got this. So I'm like what can I do that? I had some criteria of like you know, like what am I going to be when I grow up?
Speaker 2:Now I was like you know, I'm a master electrician by trade. I got a dozen years in the corporate world with business and I need to have something where I have scheduled flexibility, because now I have a liver team, now I have a kidney team, now I have multiple doctor's appointments. There's a lot there. So I landed on home inspector that checked all the boxes. If I start my own company, you know I had that scheduling freedom and I can apply this skill. So I was able to complete all the needed training for the hem inspector online, because usually it's in person.
Speaker 2:Because of COVID finishing up, they were still allowing online. So I'm still sick. I'm finishing up online. I'm not physically able to do inspections. So I did all that for the line ahead of time time. As soon as they allow you to go to the physical part, I'm physically able, I go down here and finish up, and then I got to do, wow, okay. So I was like I was ready to do this before. I was even physically ready to do this. Yeah, and I think part of my healing through that was knowing I was starting a company and it gave me something to do, okay, something to strive for. And that's why with this company, that's why it means so much to me now, because it helped me heal like it gave me something to work for and now that it's working, it's just really passionate about it.
Speaker 1:yeah, so it speaks to the human condition, human will, speaks to god's hand in things, because, just in terms of the timing of things, I mean, the story overall is incredible, and it's a story still being written. By the way, now let's pray that you know the hospital bed days are behind you. Well, we just finished one up. Yeah, because there was another spinal surgery, I mean the that you know. When I came to know you, you were weeks away from this most recent surgery, so let's talk about that. So what? What did that entail?
Speaker 2:well then, that one was two. It fell back from the previous one being found. Once again, these things are found. There's a reason why they're found, you know, uh. So when I was getting worked up for the kidney transplant and after the liver transplant to do a full body, they found the tumor on my uh, on my spinal cord then. But it was small and I didn't have any symptoms and I just wanted to live at the time. So we're like we'll deal with that at a later date, right, well, you know, for get, I'm finally healthy, I'm finally doing great. And then back in August, you know, that sucker reared up his nasty head and all of a sudden I got arms going numb right arm, then left arm, then I'm dropping things. I know what's wrong. I go back to MRIs. They're like okay, this tumor has wrapped around your spinal cord, we're going to remove part of your spine and we're going to get it out. That was tomorrow will be six weeks when I had that done.
Speaker 2:So one of the things I do want to mention because you talk about faith and I think it's important I want to point out you know, faith is what has gotten me through everything, faith and family, and the quote I use and I mentioned to you earlier and I like to tell people is when you go through things like this, you know there's different mentalities and ways you can take it and sometimes you beat yourself up like why is this happening to me? You know why me, why me and I heard this along the way and I just started practicing and using it and it changed. Everything to me is stop telling God how big your problems are and start telling your problems how big your god is. And when you do that, you just give it all to him and all you gotta do is worry about you, gotta worry about your stress level goes down, your anxiety goes down. You know he's gonna handle it for you and you do your part. You know you don't just sit around. You gotta heal, you gotta do your part. You know you don't just sit around. You got to heal, you got to do your part. But if you just, you know, don't, everything that happens happens for a reason and anything that has happened through me that has been any type of negative impact has had a positive impact on the other side.
Speaker 2:There's reasons we go through things, impact on the other side. There's reasons we go through things and there's preparation in which you know I said previous to you, mike, is, had I not gone through the brain surgeries, the brain surgery and that health issues back then in 2006, I would not have been mentally prepared to go through everything I've gone through recently. So that was a step and at the time I didn't know what that was. This is hindsight, looking back, and that prepped me for the transplants. And then going through all that and now just having, you know, tumor of my spinal cord. To me that was like okay, let's just go and get this knocked out, be laid up for a few weeks and move on, like it's just, we're okay, we got momentum, you know, and it's just.
Speaker 1:that gives me that positive perspective and positive attitude just go ahead, god's got this yeah, sometimes through what seems to be a tragic event, occurrence in our life, um, as bad as it seems in that moment, um, as you move through time and you have perspective and you look back, you realize that born of that moment has been tons and tons of blessings, of course, and there are blessings that will be born of that, that are ahead of you still, that you have no idea what they are, that they're coming, but they're out there, of course. And through time brings perspective and understanding, and so all I can say is, from my perspective, looking at you, it's amazing that you look as good as you look and that you have the attitude that you have.
Speaker 1:Because I'm sure, not all of the days have been sunny and rosy. You're a human and you have your human moments, and so it couldn't have been easy, but I've never known you to complain or just you've always had a good attitude and, having heard the story that you just told, um, I have a lot of respect for you and thank you. I think that, uh, you know, just having people hear what you've gone through, everybody has their own stories, but they can kind of relate to whether it's a medical thing or just some sort of uh challenge hurdle that they have to overcome. They see, gosh, okay, if he can get through that, then there's hope for me too. So I appreciate you sharing with me and with the listeners a bit of your story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot more that you and I could talk about. Relative to that and I say this a lot to my guests it's like we need to have another podcast to talk about dot dot, dot. Well, we need to have another podcast to just kind of talk about, kind of some of our shared experiences, okay, and how, uh, they could be used to help others who are going through something tough in their life in the moment. There's people out there listening to this, whether it's this week or three or four months from now, because this podcast is going to live a long, long life. People will be hearing this many, many months or years from now. Even You're giving hope to somebody out there. You just don't know who that person is or what the situation is. So thank you for doing that.
Speaker 2:Thank you for the kind words. I appreciate it and I do want to give hope because, yeah, it sounds like I've been through a lot. Yeah, I've been through a lot. Okay, cool.
Speaker 1:You have been so admit it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but everybody's story is different. Everybody goes through it. I'd like to say that you know, I'm a cautionary tale and I don't mind talking about it, because I think, at the end of the day, anything is achievable with the right mindset, and that's business. That's getting through health, that's getting through relationships, that's getting through anything. I mean, if you just you know, have faith and have a good attitude, that can fix anything. Yeah, I believe that.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, thank you for sharing. I think with that message we'll end things on that beautiful note. Fair enough, yeah, I'm proud to be your friend and I'm proud to have you here today to help tell your story. I appreciate that. Mike, everybody, there you go. There's a one man's um kind of perspective on on life and overcoming, uh, some of the stuff that happens to people. Um, you know, chris has had more than his share of human things happen to him, but, um, when you reach out, uh and share your experience with others, they can kind of see themselves in you a little bit. You never know who you're helping when you're sharing and when you're being vulnerable.
Speaker 2:So, thanks, for doing that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely All right. Everybody Well ends this edition of the Good Neighbor podcast. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening, until next time. Everybody be good to your neighbor. So long, thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Union. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPUnioncom.
Speaker 2:That's GNPUnioncom, that's gmpunioncom, or call us at 859-651-8330.