Dear Friends,

I hope you are all well…………

Normally, I would start my newsletter by telling you how I have been doing since my last “On the Beaton Path”, however; I would like to open with information about my brother-in-law, Guy Irvin.  Guy is battling with Stage 4 Kidney (renal) failure and is being placed on the wait-list for a kidney transplant.  He is one of the nicest people I’ve met in my life.  As you know I was paralyzed on July 2, 2011 and after having spent 7.5 months in 4 different hospitals, I came home on February 14, 2012.  Guy was in constant touch with his sister, Linda, to check on my progress, visited as often as he could and a month prior to my discharge asked Linda who was going to care for me while she was at work.  After she shared that she hadn’t had time to look for a caregiver, he hung up, spoke with his wife, and called her back to tell her that he was quitting his job in Springfield, Illinois and moving down to Franklin, Tennessee to help us as long as we needed him.  Guy was a wonderful caregiver and his kind gesture to me was unbelievable and speaks volumes as to his character.  Who would do such a thing?

Guy needs my help now…  And, since you’ve been so supportive of me these past 6.5 years, I wonder if you would consider helping me help Guy?

Linda’s family and I will be sharing a video on Facebook today and we need your help getting this out to as many of your friends and family as possible.  The more people who see this video, the better chance we have of saving Guy’s life and also raising awareness of kidney disease so that we can, perhaps, save other lives in the process.  The video is for/of Guy. He is in need of a Kidney; preferably from a living donor. He has a genetic disease that has no cure and the only thing that can possibly save his life is a Kidney Transplant.

We are asking that, today when we begin sharing the video, if you have time please watch it and share it on your page. If you want to help a little more, we ask that you write a short post or share directly to other peoples’ pages including people such as teachers, fire fighters, police officers, doctors, or Tag Pages such as Local News Channels, Good Morning America, Ellen, online news publications such as New York Times, Huffington Post, etc.

The video will be shared from https://www.facebook.com/GuyIrvinIII/    Feel free to Like/Follow

To find out if you are a match and learn more about becoming a living donor, please contact:

Julie Pfeiffer, RN, BSN, CPTC
Living Donor Transplant Coordinator
Piedmont Transplant Institute
1968 Peachtree Road, NW
77 Building, 5th Floor,
Atlanta, GA  30309
Office:  404.605.2950
Fax:  404.588.4585
Email:  Julie.pfeiffer@piedmont.org

For more information on how you can help save a life, please visit:

• https://www.kidney.org/transplantation/livingdonors
• https://www.gofundme.com/guys-living-donor-kidney-campaign
• https://www.facebook.com/GuyIrvinIII/

As for me, there has been no change in my health since my last newsletter.  I still have issues with my voice.  Due to the number of trachs placed since 2014, one of my vocal chords has again been damaged.  This, coupled with the fact that there is air escaping around my trach makes it difficult to project my voice.

I plan to send another issue of the “On The Beaton Path” in late April…hopefully, it will be more upbeat than this one!

As always, thank you for your love and well wishes.  Hearing from you always makes my day brighter.

Love,

Alex