Part I of II
“I’ve been to hell and back. I’ve seen the edge. I have seen the dark side of life.”
Natalie Cole (1950-2015)
Kidney transplant recipient
This is the true story of how President Trump saved my life.
In early 2017, I was diagnosed with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and its partner in death, End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD).
In the emergency room, my blood pressure was 242 over 160. It’s a miracle I didn’t stroke out and die.
I was quickly diagnosed, spent days in the hospital and then began years of dialysis and the debilitating wait for that most elusive of gifts: a kidney transplant.
On July 10, 2019, President Trump signed his ground-breaking “Advancing American Kidney Health” Executive Order. (Here is a link to the video from the signing ceremony, complete with kidney/transplant patients like 1-year-old Hudson Nash.)
On Christmas Day, 2019, as I was exiting a Church service, “Joy to the World” blaring as my friend and I left, when my phone rang. It was the medical center transplant coordinator saying, “Mr. Robinson, we’d like to offer you a kidney.”
During my recent interview with President Trump. I was elated, of course, to be alive which is an omnipresent emotion for me these days. The president picked up on this immediately and radiated kindness throughout.
As my interview began with President Trump, I blurted out, “I wanted to thank you for saving my life and thousands of others, President Trump.”
He was surprised that the writer he was talking to was a kidney patient himself. “Oh! Is that true? Are you somebody who had the work done?”
“President Trump,” I started emotionally, “I had been on dialysis for more than two years when you signed your order and six months later, I got the call as I was walking out of church on Christmas Day, 2019, that they had a kidney for me. I got that kidney from a new Hepatitis-C clinical trial program that was really kicked into high gear by your order.”
In the most caring way, President Trump inquired, “And how has it been?”
“Oh, it’s a brand-new world for me, Mr. President.”
President Trump is the only president who ever cared (much less did anything) to help the 40 million-plus Americans afflicted with an epidemic-level contagion sweeping America: kidney failure, dialysis, and, most often, death.
According to CDC data, “Kidney diseases are a leading cause of death in the United States.”
(Center for Disease Control & Prevention, Chronic Kidney Disease Initiative)
The data is staggering and it grows every day, every hour, unstoppable. The 40 million number today was 33 million in 2017. At least 120,000 Americans wait on a national kidney transplant list with 33 dying every single day for lack of a kidney.
Only .9%, fewer than 1 in 100 kidney patients survive dialysis.
Of the gargantuan national transplant list for all organs in America, more than 80% are those waiting for kidneys. Obviously, there’s a serious problem with the kidneys of Americans.
Kidney disease destroys lives and may well kill more Americans than cancer or heart disease. Yet it is rarely covered as the curse it is by our media.
I asked Trump, “Why did you help struggling and dying kidney patients like me? Did you have friends or a family member that were in kidney failure?”
“Well, over the course of years, I’ve known people with this problem, like your problem and over the years, it just sounded like something could be done and it wasn’t being done. So, this was something that could be solved and we thought we could do that.”
Continued in Part II, Read Here
Bill Robinson has appeared on Fox News, CNN, PBS, Bloomberg, BBC and had his own segment on SKY News. For seven years was the only Conservative columnist for the Huffington Post. He has written columns and articles for The Wall Street Journal Europe, Forbes.com, Fortune Small Business, The Financial Times, The Moscow Times, United Airline's Hemispheres Magazine and many others. Bill may be reached at: bill@relentlessmarketing.com. Read More of Bill Robinson's Reports — Here.
(This is a story I’ve written. We all have our stories. If you’d like to share yours with me or you would like my prayers, I’d love to hear from you. My email is Bill@RelentlessMarketing.com
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