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Clint Holcomb has been an assistant wrestling coach for the final 10 years and an assistant soccer coach for the final 4. He’s coached at practically each degree, from youth to center college to highschool, all throughout the Conestoga Valley Faculty District.
However for the higher a part of the final three years, Holcomb, himself a CV grad, hasn’t been capable of spend a lot time together with his fellow coaches off the sector or the mat.
As an alternative, after a apply or a recreation, Holcomb needed to return house and hook himself as much as a dialysis machine for eight hours.
“I’d go to work, go to apply, coach, come house, eat dinner, plug into dialysis, repeat,” mentioned Holcomb, who has labored in development since graduating from CV in 2001.
“That’s how my life went on a regular basis for the final three and a half years,” he mentioned.
Dialysis is mostly the final choice for an individual when the kidneys attain end-stage failure. It does the issues a functioning kidney ought to: take away waste, hold sure chemical substances within the physique evenly balanced and management blood strain, amongst different duties.
The human physique often has two kidneys. Holcomb discovered he had been dwelling with one throughout a visit to the emergency room at Lancaster Common Hospital in January 2017.
“My kidney operate was solely 6%,” Holcomb mentioned. “They saved me in for awhile to be able to stabilize issues to determine what was flawed. They scanned my kidneys and discovered I solely have one kidney.”
Since February 2017, Holcomb has been on a wait checklist for a brand new kidney at Penn State Well being Milton S. Hershey Medical Heart.
Three years and one month later, at three p.m. on the afternoon of March 23, he received the decision he’d been ready for.
“They mentioned, ‘Are you able to get right here by 4:30?” Holcomb mentioned. “I used to be speculated to have surgical procedure that evening however they noticed one thing on the donor’s lungs and simply wished to do an additional take a look at to rule out him being constructive for the coronavirus.”
That take a look at got here again damaging, and Holcomb underwent kidney transplant surgical procedure March 25. He returned to his Pequea Township house three days later, with a journey house coming from fellow assistant wrestling coach Mark Kistler.
With most of Holcomb’s household dwelling outdoors of Lancaster County, Kistler has supported Holcomb within the type of rides to and from appointments and not too long ago purchasing for his groceries.
“He’s a kind of guys who appears at life (as a) glass half-full,” Kistler mentioned of Holcomb. “Again when this primary occurred he was a single man in his early 30s. He can be on dialysis the subsequent three years … not many individuals can be keen to try this and nonetheless be there for the youngsters teaching soccer and wrestling all through this.”
Holcomb displayed an identical spirit throughout his enjoying days as a 5-foot-2-inch linebacker on the gridiron.
“We referred to as him ‘Scrappy’ as a result of for being on the smaller aspect he performed very aggressive,” longtime CV soccer coach Gerad Novak mentioned. “And he wasn’t afraid of hitting anyone.”
Holcomb, 37, nonetheless has surgical procedures forward to take away a port in his abdomen by which he had beforehand obtained dialysis, and to take away a stent within the new kidney, which got here from a person in his mid-20s who had died.
Ultimately, Holcomb wish to thank the household of that donor.
“Simply to achieve out to them and say ‘Thanks,’ ” Holcomb mentioned. “It’s not going to go to waste.”
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