So being yanked out of the sport at the top of your game that's rough and
It was just it was really a spiral down. I mean
When I found out I had the disease in 99 it was so rare at that time
they they ran tests for another year before they even
confronted me and told me about it because they just wanted to be I guess sure because it was so rare at the time and
I
Remember, you know
Being how I am. I just licked him. If I go did I do this?
Did I do this to myself based on what I use what I've done, you know
If I if I pissed in a bit, then I gotta sleep in it
Did I did I do this and I'm like no I never said no, how do you know that?
you know, how do you know and
I remember him saying, you know
There's a famous basketball player that has the same disease and we know he didn't do what you do
And they wouldn't tell me his name then but now I know what it is. It's Lonzo morning
Yeah, I was like, huh? I said, okay and then later on I started meeting families you had kids that
Obviously didn't do what I did
So, you know, I I went into the hospital
Well, I finally had disease and you know
That was rough because all my contracts left they ran like the Black Plague
you imagine your pain and athletes to look a certain way and
There was a dark side to what they have to do. And now you have kidney failure, please
Try to convince me. It's not a correlation to what you're doing. You're lying. Of course it is
No, it's a rare kidney disease and you know, so it's it's FSGS Foucault's glamorous girl neurosis. Sure sure. It is son
So they all ran like the plague. So I just lost everything my mansion, my cars and
I
Was trying to explain it, you know to somebody at a time, you know
So I I was fortunate I had a really really really really really really really really big house
That people would come to and get lost. You know, if they went the wrong direction and I
Was forced from that to have to go and stand with my mother-in-law
in a
Three-bedroom house that had one bathroom and it was me and my my my ex-wife now
Me her and our two kids living in a room in a single bed
all three of us laying in it and her sister and her
Husband and their kids living in the other room and our mother live in another room
So coming from that into there not to mention
I had my dialysis machine that I was to Alice sighs a myself enosis. It was health like wow
This is my life now, and I remember trying to explain to them
because they'd be like why you depress on my
Guess yeah, but you're here flex I couldn't get that. I might look at everything. I lost. I'm like, why would that matter? I'm like
Okay, so if you're if you're this height and you fall it hurts a certain amount
But if you're away a pair and you fall is greater anybody know so I'm like, of course it is
You're just saying it because you weren't up there. So anyway
Fast forward I I get it
You know a transplant
Soon because I was I was going to get into dialysis every other day for three hours
and at the at the time I was still around 260 pounds, so I was too heavy and
The kidney disease was getting more aggressive
So it got to the point where?
They wanted me to start coming in every day for 12 hours and I just told them I said go F yourself
I rather die you guys notice?
you're going to if you don't and we're not sure if you're gonna make it even if you do, I'm like I
Don't have a life if I come in here and do that
I might I just rather just I you know
I just that's not wise to live so I wasn't thinking about my kids or anything at the time
it's just I was just the darkness I was in and
So fortunate I got a kidney transplant and I thought that was great but
The girl who was my donor it was a female
She was very petite and while that I guess they had us out on a table
They discovered that the main artery to her kidney was short because she's tiny and I'm big
so they were gonna put the kidney back in her and just stitched me back up and I guess one of the surgeons
You know had a great idea
We're going to my main artery here and take it out and extend it and make you know
the surgery work well in the process of doing that because I was
Not not only what you know when I didn't 260 pounds, but it's just probably at that time maybe four percent
So just muscular, you know, they they use these huge
Clamps open everything up just like I guess a c-section
so in doing so it kills the main artery here because I was clamped and it was
You know pinched down for so long so they got that to work
but I ended up having you know, a long story short nine surgeries in 11 weeks that I almost died from and I was just
Son of us this blood-curdling pain I ever experienced at that time. I was literally on
oxycodone
Oxycodone which is once a injectable and whens a pill I was on a Demerol pump and I had an epidural, you know
That was contacted to my spine. I was just just
Hallucinating I was in la-la land literally
I mean they they took me from my hospital bed and
put me into a mental institution on the other part of the hospital because I was just gone and
Here we can back glass to what I was talking about drugs. So instead of helping me
All they did was put me on more drugs. So we all know that when you're on tremendous amount of painkillers what happens depression?
Oh now we need to put your anti depression. Oh, that's not working
let's switch you to this and that spiraled I end up having a bad effect from that and just losing it just were
You know
Weeks would go by and to me they're just seconds and I would just hallucinate
I remember talking to my friends and you know
What do you think of my dog and I only know these things because he told me later and I'm asking him
What do you think of my dog and he's like what dog flex he goes my dog, and I'm pointing at my foot
You know
Even something more embarrassing. My niece was visiting me and I'm asking Oh underwear you got on
And she didn't tell me till years later not in when she told me I was sobbing that's my niece
She goes uncle Kenny. I knew that wasn't you it I didn't bother me and another time
I I was so hungry cuz he starting because I have an all these tests on right and I
Was starving plus I'm coming off eating eight thousand calories a day
To be to sit down. So I'm dying. I'm angry. Imagine when you're hungry
I'm angry and I'm hallucinating and I'm I'm opening the cabinets and I'm getting everything
I'm making a peanut butter and jelly sounds and I put it on and only when I bite though
I realize it ain't nothing air which just sends me in a more anger and in rage so
they put me into a mental institution and you know through arguments with them and just
Some of the things I saying in air
which is people who have
mental problems a normal person just don't supposed to see that and don't even pose to see how they respond to those people and
I was arguing with him and
We discovered that
Two of the medications had an adverse effect that it said right on the label
do not switch these two or mingle these two together or else it causes this and
It goes no
We don't think your honor goes right there read it and as doctors some are no you're wrong and they came back
We think you're onto something. I like I want out of here. No, no. Yeah, you have to stay
I'm gonna know I went out of here it goes well
Listen, you know you were suicidal before so, you know, you need help. I'm like no I beat that
This is you guys fall
You know, we'll just stay one more day and let's make sure so the next day I even got better
so I did just put me back in the other side of the hospital so that
was really hard and I
Can't really explain it, but I remember
my room was really dark and and
To me. I thought it was a nurse because nurse would come in and draw him blood at all times an hour and
Still I wonder but
this nurse came in and she just sat on my bed and she goes
What are you upset about? You know what you feeling bad about yourself? Why are you pitying? You know, I'm like you
mean look at me she and I
Look at me she goes, but look at everything you've done you traveled a world you made money
You won shows look at everything great you down I go, but I ain't nothing now look at me
You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself. What about your kids? What about your family? You think of them? Nah, Mike
And I just remember waking up and I was just my
My beginning to stop the flight and start a fight
And when I got at a hospital, I I have to I had to go to see the doctors every three months
you know was really critical and I
Remember them because I'm Dyslexic. I'm very good with remembering words and what you say in and in how to
Put that back to you
If you say something I'm gonna lock in on your words and I'm gonna use them because that's your language
I know you all understand it that way and I remember the doctor say they're like
They're Katyn said the way they were talk to me was always the same and always the same in and
do you feel this does this happen they said now and then finally like after I
Think my third visit so that's three six nine months
I'm like, why do you keep asking me these questions why you keep doing that? Well, we just need to know
Why do you why do you keep doing that?
It doesn't matter. I'm like it does matter. Why why you keep asking me that?
Well, it's just a chance that you know, you might have a relapse. I'm like, what do you mean by that?
It doesn't matter. We don't we need to talk about. Yeah, we do. This is my life. Why are you doing that?
Well flex, the disease doesn't go away. I'm like, what do you mean? I had a kidney transplant
He goes, this is not like a heart transplant. Well, you get a new heart and you're fine. He goes
The disease ravished your kidney. It's not in your kidney. It's still in you. Okay, so, what are you saying?
And you know he cut the conversation off and I got angry and I got a hostile
I'm like no, you're gonna effin tell me this is my life. He goes well
You know, you'll have to have another transplant like Oh, what do you mean by that he goes?
Your disease will reverse this kidney I go so you're saying I gotta go through this all over again
Yeah, but don't worry about it. You know you you've been through it your kidney transplant patient. You'll be fine
I go. No, no, like oh
That's like telling a woman, you know, you're gonna give birth again, even though you almost died nine times
Giving birth to your last host. You'll probably are I'm good. I'm not gonna have any more kids
So you tell me I gonna have to go he goes, we don't know that that's not gonna happen I go
but I do know that it's possible because I went through it and
I went home and I was just in a state of depressive like man. I thought I was done
you tell me I
Think I laid in bed for maybe three days
Allowing Kenny to just beat my ass, you know, like the old days you get it. Yeah, and I
Just I got tired and angry just with just a pity crap. I said, you know what?
I'm okay. If this is gonna happen, it's gonna have to come and get me I'm gonna get up
I'm gonna go live my life. I'm gonna get back in shape
When it knocks on a door, I'm not answer and I'm out somewhere. It's gonna have to come and find me
I'm not gonna just sit here and let this just come and just happen like hey, how you doing?
Come on in my cuz I'm a fight