JOSH HAMILTON NEEDS A KIDNEY St. Louis native and all-around good guy Josh Hamilton is in stage four kidney failure and needs a kidney transplant. Are you in general good health, please consider donating a kidney to help keep Josh alive. You do not need to be a blood match and swaps with other patients who are better matches are possible.

 Who is Josh Hamilton? Josh, 46, grew up in St. Louis and is a lifelong fan of the local hockey team, the St. Louis Blues  (he had early dreams of joining the team). 

 He still lives in the area with his wife, Cappy Sue, and a menagerie of animals, including a two shelter dogs.  They perpetually adopt shelter dogs to give the loving homes often seniors. They call them the  Little Dogs Club.  But that is just a name they have had big and small members.   They have 3 rescue cats one is very special to him.  16-year-old cat he calls "my dude," whom he hangs out with all the time. 

 Josh manages an auto parts store, and makes a point of hiring people who need a break. This hiring strategy has been a huge success: he has created tons of managers in his area, and one of his employees is setting records in sales in his department. Josh has also over the years given money and even food to his some of his staff when they've fallen on hard times. As a result, his staff is intensely loyal: they threaten that if he ever leaves the job, they'll all leave too. 

Josh is also the type of person to regularly goes on personal rescue missions to help animals out. For example, when his neighbors were getting married, their ancient little dog got out of the house [WHAT HAPPENED? Was she freaked out? Shivering?]. When he was unable to reach the dog's owners, Josh got out a crate, lined it with a blanket, and cajoled her to let him put her in it, to keep her safe and warm. 

Josh is an avid watcher of documentaries about history, and likes to watch each series from the very beginning ("because you cannot start any place else[,] that is just insanity apparently," sighs Cappy Sue). He and Cappy regularly talk about how state borders came to be. Josh collects video game systems, from vintage systems like Atari and Nintendo to modern systems, with games to match. He'd like to put together a video channel sharing some of the old consoles and games, but has never felt well enough to follow through. 

Josh's Health Problems One morning about 15 years ago, when he was in his early 30s, Josh woke up and found that half his body had gone numb. Initially unwilling to see a doctor, Josh googled and concluded that he had pinched a nerve. From there, though, he got sicker and sicker, and finally agreed to see a doctor when edema made his legs swell so badly that touching them left dents. For Josh and Cappy Sue, that was the beginning of a years-long battle to find the right diagnosis and treatment for his medical conditions. The couple learned that Josh had suffered a series of small strokes culminating in the larger stroke that had left him numb. He also had such a severe case of hypertension (with no known cause) that he was in congestive heart failure. With Cappy Sue's fierce advocacy, Josh was put on medications to improve his heart condition and blood pressure. In the meantime, however, his kidneys were damaged. Despite his sticking closely to a Chronic Kidney Disease diet, over the next six years, his kidneys deteriorated. After some terrifying emergency trips to the hospital, Josh was eventually diagnosed with Retroperitoneal Fibrosis (RPF), a rare condition that causes excess connective tissue to create concrete-like masses in the body. In Josh's case, these masses crushed his ureters (the tubes that carry urine from the kidneys to the bladder) so badly that regular stents (artificial drainage tubes) weren't enough, and for months he had catheters inserted through his back to his kidneys to drain his urine. He also underwent a twelve-hour surgery to remove the masses caused by the RPF and to attempt to repair his ureters. More medication helped with the repair process, and he was eventually able to have stents inserted between his kidneys and his bladder, but had to have them replaced at least 20 times. Finally Josh's health was looking good. Then the COVID pandemic hit. Josh and Cappy Sue got all the possible vaccines and took all the steps they were able to take to protect Josh's health; after two years, though, one strain of the disease got through to Josh. It nearly killed him. He went septic and had to be hospitalized. At that point, the kidney that was most damaged from the previous years' ordeals just gave out, with the remaining, also-ailing kidney struggling, without success, to handle the vital function of filtering harmful materials out of Josh's bloodstream. Now, the time has come to admit the inevitable: Josh needs a new kidney in order to survive.  If you think you might be willing to help and would like more information about the process, please contact Josh and Cappy Sue at gimmethatbeanplease@gmail.com or via whomever you found this through on Facebook. The many people and animals who love and appreciate Josh -- will be very grateful.

Other ways to help.  You could contact any of these three places to see about donating.  For many things you can do testing in your own area and in some cases even donate from your area instead of traveling.  The three places to contact are 

 Loyola in upper Illinois https://nkr.donorscreen.org/register/microsite?id=11020&donationType=0

Then Barnes Jewish in St.Louis  https://www.barnesjewish.org/Medical-Services/Transplant/Kidney-Transplant/How-To-Become-A-Living-Kidney-Donor?ibp-adgroup=transplant&gclid=Cj0KCQjwveK4BhD4ARIsAKy6pMKQlc8xVc5NElkxtXeVXiyMryid0aA18feBFKQp9os3iKHpSI1VGe0aAvzSEALw_wcB

Then In Kansas City Kansas  The hospital currently only uses living donors for kidney transplantation. We offer a variety of appointment types. Learn more or call 913-588-1227 to schedule now.

Thank you for reading and considering.  It is very appreciated. 

*Hello all this is Cappy.  My wonderful Friend Denise helped me put this together.  She wrote it and I did a few minor tweaks with info and such.  She put into words a few of the reasons I love this man.  If you read this and are considering or sharing thank you.  I have included a couple of photos one of our wedding when my artsy fartsy self had everything photographed in black and white.  Then one of when he first got sick and his little dude was hanging out with him.  The last photo is his dude now.  Still his best buddy.