Bryar Nelson

    In October of 2018, Bryar lost function of both of his kidneys suddenly when a biopsy performed caused his one working kidney to bleed out. Because of the blood coming from the hole left by the biopsy, it squeezed his one working kidney and it to die.  Bryar and his family were devastated as the biopsy was something they did not want, due to the risk of bleeding with his other conditions, but the doctors insisted the risk was "normal". After this point, he was put on dialysis 3 days a week, could no longer work and went on disability.  
   In January of 2019, it was official that he was considered in end stag renal disease. During the same month, Bryar broke 3 of his toes when he tripped on an icy road.  Usually, this would not be a worry as they will heal with time, but they did not.  Two of the toes became infected then necrotic after battling to heal for nearly 6 months.  Both of them were removed and the site became infected again but after another 6 months, we were able to clear it up with help of many people.  In December of 2018, we decided to move to North Branch to be closer to family to help with the stresses of life at this time.  We moved in July of 2019 with loads of family and friends to get our first house ready to sell/cleaned.  
   Bryar spent a lot of 2019  in and out of the hospital for various reasons from a diabetic seizure to contracting a staff infection(and a few others) because of the immune suppressants being used to try to keep his Lupus under control to protect his other organs.  During 2019,  U of M put a fistula in his right arm to prevent infection for the many dialysis treatments he would need. But, it caused his right hand to get what they call Steals syndrome were the blood flow to the fingers becomes drastically reduced causing feeling and healing to be affected.  Shortly after, he burned his fingers in water as he did not feel how hot it was.  Because of this syndrome, he almost lost his fingers, if not his hand because they too became infected. After many attempts of getting this corrected, in which the U of M could not seem to get an appointment to accommodate us or to call us back, We finally just went down to St. John's and stayed until his fistula was removed and a new fistula was put in.  This trip to St. John's also ended up including the removal of his toes as it seems that the local providers were not able to stop it from happening.  
   Luckily,  in 2019 we were connected to Mayo to have a look at Bryar's medical status and were approved to go there for treatment.  As Bryar was going through his first round of testing, to confirm his body could handle a transplant, his heart freaked out during the stress test. They immediately sent him to the hospital where he got a stent put into his heart were a clot had formed. This overlapped with the issues we were already having issues with the incision for his toe removal not healing properly.  So, Bryar worked hard to get them healed then after headed back to go through the testing again to be sure he could handle the transplant. This time, his heart again showed signs of having an issue so they lined up a out patient angiogram to check things out. Turns out, he had another clot that form in the stent because if had narrowed again.  During the removal, his blood pressure dropped and he was at risk of loosing his life.  Mayo doctors got everything figured out and he ended up in the ICU over night and another week for observation. During that time, his white blood count dropped suddenly, for no reason. The doctors never did figure out what caused it as it finally corrected itself after over a week.   
    In early 2020, Bryar was finally approved for transplant of a new kidney and put on the donor list.  At this time, we were told that it would take anywhere from 6 to 7 years for a deceased donor.  We were told that a live donor would be must better option because of outcomes being more positive.  So, we started to prep to start looking for a donor but then Covid hit. Because of this, we isolated from pretty much everyone, hoping to keep Bryar from being infected.  During this time we did not look for a donor as Bryar was stable and the risk of immuno-suppressants during a pandemic was not something we wanted to risk.  We all made it until January 2022 before we got Covid in our house.  Bryar hardly had symptoms and the rest of us got sick for a couple of days or not at all. 
  Which, brings me to this week.  We got a call at 2pm on Wednesday July 6th that they had a kidney for Bryar and had to get down to Rochester, MN by 6pm that day in order for it to happen.  It was very unexpected as the wait times given did not even have us considering the prospect yet that it was possible. So, we rushed and got down there with 5 minutes to spare so they could start preperations. Bryar went into surgery at 9:50 pm that night and his new kidney was implanted around midnight.  He returned back to him room 2 am on July 7th  which is were resides now.
   Thank you to our family and friends who have supported us over the last 3 years.  It has been a lot of ups and downs but we could not have done it without any of you. 


Sincerely,


Heidi Nelson