By creator to www.aspendailynews.com
Chase Harrison says household help, religion hold him going
Longtime native resident and outside fanatic Chase Harrison is racing time to discover a dwelling kidney donor.
Harrison’s state of affairs was outlined in a latest information launch from the Chris Klug Basis, an Aspen nonprofit devoted to selling lifesaving organ and tissue donation and bettering the standard of life for these affected by such donations.
Final week, the inspiration’s program supervisor, Cecille Cunningham, offered transcripts from her interview with Harrison by which he recalled his life’s journey from Georgia to the Colorado Rockies, and in the end to Aspen. He additionally spoke in regards to the discovery that his kidneys have been failing and his outlook on the ordeal.
“I’ve positively had bouts of uncertainty right here and there, however I’m simply taking it at some point at a time,” Harrison mentioned within the launch. “I’ve a beautiful help group, which helps rather a lot. My household is extremely shut and I’m so blessed to have them to fall again on. They’ll at all times have my again, it doesn’t matter what — that’s the way in which I used to be raised.”
Harrison, who’s in his 50s, is on the slow-moving ready record for a kidney transplant however would be thankful for a dwelling donor. On the identical time, he’s selling consciousness of the dire want for dwelling donors, the discharge says.
As a youth rising up within the South, he was launched to Colorado via household holidays. He “utterly fell in love” with snowboarding, and remembers telling his father, “I’m going to stay right here sometime.”
He mentioned he turned an journey athlete throughout highschool, and as a Boy Scout would attend summer time mountain camps in North Carolina. After graduating from an out of doors management faculty within the early 1980s, he was motivated to maneuver to Colorado — and shortly after, found Aspen.
“After only one winter in Colorado, I packed up my crappy automobile, moved to Aspen and the remaining is just about historical past,” he mentioned.
Within the higher Roaring Fork Valley, Harrison turned a information for outside journeys and likewise a volunteer firefighter. Six years in the past, he was recognized with Kind 2 diabetes.
“And that’s when all these items with my kidneys began,” he mentioned.
However Harrison mentioned the state of affairs actually took a flip final spring when he took a monthlong journey to Ecuador, even visiting the Galapagos Islands for 10 days. He doesn’t remorse it, however upon returning dwelling, he started to really feel horribly sick.
Round Memorial Day, barely in a position to speak to his mother and father due to his situation, he went to the Aspen Valley Hospital emergency room. He had misplaced quite a lot of weight and was extraordinarily dehydrated, and the medical doctors informed him his kidneys have been failing.
Quickly, he mentioned, he was despatched to St. Mary’s Medical Heart in Grand Junction, the place he spent greater than two weeks. He was launched, however on a subsequent go to to St. Mary’s, he was knowledgeable that he wanted a kidney transplant.
Though he’s steady for now, “eventually, my kidneys are going to go,” Harrison mentioned.
He’s been visiting UCHealth Medical Heart in Denver to be arrange with a transplant coordinator and to endure a battery of assessments to find out his standing on the waitlist.
“It didn’t take me lengthy to study what the precise timeframe was for an individual on the waitlist — you may be on there for years,” Harrison mentioned. “I additionally discovered, nonetheless, that when you’ve got a dwelling donor, it quickens the method immensely, and you’ll obtain your transplant in a a lot shorter period of time.”
Harrison mentioned his brother’s ordeal with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome — a illness that impacts the physique’s connective tissue — has saved him grounded and optimistic. He additionally attributes quite a lot of his optimism and positivity to religion in the next energy.
Within the meantime, he’s doing most of the issues he would usually do.
“I’m nonetheless using my bike and doing the issues I get pleasure from, the issues that I’m enthusiastic about and can at all times be enthusiastic about,” Harrison mentioned.
Clearly, he mentioned, he can now not go to the athletic extremes to which he had turn out to be accustomed. Discovering a dwelling donor is his most vital “summit” now, he added.
Donor tales are revealed on the inspiration’s web site, chrisklugfoundation.org, and shared on social media. For extra details about Harrison or the inspiration, name 203-444-7494 or go to the aforementioned web site.
