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Hogan’s a Hero
Body hunched over his Trek® bike, wind whistling through his ears, the miles clicking by at a 20-mile-an-hour pace, Brett Hogan, 25, feels fully alive. No one would ever guess that the cyclist they see whizzing past has overcome kidney disease and now lives with a transplanted kidney.
This cyclist, coach and college student is raising awareness for patients suffering from kidney disease—and he's doing it all from his bike.
The Diagnosis
Brett was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease when he was 17. A member of the high school swim team, he had been having blood pressure problems before doctors finally diagnosed him with the genetic disorder.
With his kidneys in steady decline, Brett was finally placed on dialysis in 2003. “I learned a whole lot about my body and closely followed the diet,” he says. “I made it a goal to be as healthy as I could, but there were limits.”
Brett was still able to ride his bike, but not as much as he wanted. “I couldn’t go as fast, and I always had to watch my heart rate,” he says. “My body would want to sweat, but I couldn’t let it. I could do the long rides, but would have to take stops more frequently and couldn’t go for as long as my friends could.”
A Perfect Match
Last August, his life changed. After 14 months on dialysis at the Eastside Center in Wichita, Kan., he got the call that a kidney was available.
“It didn’t take long to line up everything and for me to decide that it was the best thing I could do,” Brett says.
Today he feels better than ever. “It went so quickly. You’re in one night, the next morning you wake up and have a new kidney.” Brett’s kidney turned out to be a perfect match, and five months later he claims to feel a thousand times better. “It has been amazing. There’s no comparison to the way I used to feel.”
Two weeks after transplant surgery, the resilient patient rode 53 miles.
He sees his successful transplant as a way to be a positive force for other people. “I’m a person who always sees the silver lining, and I think there’s no choice but to have a good attitude. I got a second chance with my transplant and I don’t want to waste it.”
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