Oh, and welcome to the Get It Like podcast, where we have conversations about Oregon, tissue, and eye donation. I'm Laurie Steel. I'm Joey Bujro. I'm Sally Gentry.
And futuristic sci-fi fans. Hey attention. Star Trek fans, Deep Space Nine. Hey, a star is joining us on this episode.
Why you may ask? There's a tide of donation that you'll want to hear about. And to hear him talk with such genuineness about this donation is fantastic. You're going to love it.
So hold on to your hat. We're about to get started. But listen, we want you to share this and every episode of the Get It Like. We try to make it as easy as possible.
Easy peasy. You can find us anywhere. You can call us at 5048-3477-504777. We are excited here on the Gifted Life.
We are excited here on the Gifted Life. We have some star power coming our way, guys. We've been prepping forward. So we're excited.
Erin Eisenberg joins us now. How are you? I'm very good. Thank you for having me.
It's an honor to be here. I'm very excited to be able to speak with you all and help out with your donation and getting transplant awareness. Well, we think it's cool that we get to talk to you because if you Google search your name, we find that you are connected to Star Trek. Is that right?
That is correct. I played Nog the first ringing correctly. Congratulations. Thank you.
It's a great honor. It is. It is. I'm now captain.
All right. Almost one flag of the idle. We always like to play that way. We just actually came back from the Star Trek Las Vegas convention that creation puts on.
I just came back from that, which was wonderful. It was great. And so I guess the most important question that we're going to field today is that we're going to ask you how long for the makeup? Really?
No joke. My fiancee over here is laughing because I have a t-shirt that says it only takes an hour and a half. She wears it all the time and I have a few other people that have purchased one that wear it. Is it the question I get asked more than any other question.
I always thought people would say, wow, are you Brad Pitt? Well, that was question number two. We think it's incredible. We've been watching all the videos, we've been watching your interviews and things.
We just think you're great. You just seem cool. Someone cool. I think you're cool because you're joining us on this podcast for a very important reason.
The reason that you're able to bring that character to life to do all these incredible things to reach all these people is because someone said yes to donation and they said it a long time ago, right? Your journey with donation started when you were born. Pretty much. Yeah.
I was adopted. What had happened is my mom, Linda Iseberg, my mother who adopted me was concerned because she was like, well, he's not eating. So when they took me in, they did some tests and they found out that I only have one kidney and that one kidney was defective. And if I know to that, the adoption agency told my mom that, well, you can give them back if you want.
Oh, no. It's really funny. My mom was, you know, of course, I'm not giving them back. It's like, you know, just returning me to Macey or something.
And the good side of that was that they then offered to have the government pay for all my expenses, her expenses. I mean, my mom's ex-medical expenses, whatever might be incurred because I was adopted, which was probably a wonderful gift and boom for my mother. Especially with what came next over the past 17 years. So I was born with one defective kidney, which is why I'm short.
I'm 5 feet tall, but I'm in proportion. Both my boys are now towering over me. And that kidney worked until I was about 13 or 14. Now, as a kid, I really just didn't have any clue.
My mom had already always called me at one kidney. And you know, but she let me kind of live my life. And the doctors, honestly, really didn't know how long I would last. They thought I would make it till three, then they didn't think I'd make it till six, then they didn't think I'd make it till 10.
And then they were like, okay, we just don't know. We don't know how long it was just gonna go. And so like I said, at 13, I began to fail. I went on dialyth, step 14.
My doctor was Dr. Karl Gruschen at Children's Hospital, the Los Angeles. Amazing doctor, amazing hospital. I have nothing but, you know what's funny?
I just now, as I'm saying, I have nothing but fond memories of all the hospitals and doctors I've ever had to deal with. Wow. That's right. I have to say I've been very, very blessed with my experiences through dialysis and transplantation both times.
I say that. It took me off track a little bit because of how much I love UCLA, which were my last transplant occurred. So anyway, we'll go back to dialysis for three years. I did C-A-P-D.
I chose to do continuous ambulatory care at the end of dialysis at the time. I think I had a luxury of doing that because my kidney still functioned. It just wasn't functioning enough to live on. So this occurred just before I went into high school.
You know, funny, you know, when you're a father and you see your boys. I always get emotional and it's my story sometimes. You see them at 13 and 14. And as a father, I go, holy, oh, I almost touched it.
I go, I go, it's unreal how I dealt with that. And I dealt with it back then. You know, when I was going through dialysis, like, okay, what do I have to do? So I knew up and let's do this.
And I had friends, another friend, her name was Jenny. She passed away. She wasn't able to have a transplant. I have another friend at that park Pettit who still has his transplant from his father.
He had a living donor. And at that time, my friend Jenny's mom, I'll never forget this was sitting in a car with me and she said, you know, you can't be on dialysis forever. And at that time, she told me that because I was afraid to go on a transplant list, which I think there's a lot of people out there even now that are afraid to go on a transplant list. And I was afraid because I remember when I went on dialysis, another gentleman in the room was constantly crying and screaming in pain.
And I'm like, my God, what's up with this guy? And they told me he had a transplant. I'm like, oh my God. I put a lot of fear in me from the get-go.
But as the years went on and I was on dialysis, she told me that. I've never forgotten that moment. I said, you're right. I know I've got to do it.
And I always knew for some reason. I don't know why. It wasn't arrogant or overconfident. It was just an instinctual feeling I had that.
I knew when I went on that list, it wasn't going to be long before I had my transplant. So sure enough, I went on a list and then I got a call on June 17th in 86th that morning for my transplant. So we went in that morning. We went in that morning, drove in later that day, forever.
And it was a deceased donor. And that kidney amazingly in 86th, perhaps 29 and a half years, I was trying so hard to get to 30. Almost out to 30. That's amazing.
And for a deceased donor, that's just absolutely incredible. Especially back then with technology, we're so much further along with matching, like closer and with the medicines that you guys have to take to be able to go 29 years. That's astounding. Yeah, absolutely.
And you know, I love telling the story. And I want to tell the story more and more. I've been frustrated that, well, and maybe this is on me to search out how to tell the story more to people that want to hear it. I've always been frustrated that doctors or hospitals or children's hospital have never reached out to me to say, hey, can you come and talk and tell your story to dial up to patients or other people or doctors or nurses?
Because it is an incredible story to last that long and to succeed so well. And you make a good point on the medication. My medication then was stand immune, cyclotorn. I remember taking the vial, the liquid form of cyclotorn, prednisone and imurans.
That was my dose. And I remember, you know, at the time when I first found my transplant, we had to put the medication into orange juice and shake it up and drink it because it tasted so bad. And I remember at the time, and maybe this was my, I don't know if it was OCD, but my vigilance and taking my medicine. I noticed when I would drink the orange juice, there was a film on the glass.
I'm like, I'm not getting all my dose. I'm not getting all my doses. So I started just pushing the medicine into my mouth and then drinking it. So I made sure I got my correct dose.
Obviously, my choices must have worked out because I've lost a long time. Well, I think your personality too. I'll have listened to you. It's like your soul of life.
Yeah. Well, I've had two chances at a second chance of life. I bet there'll be some trouble. You're right.
That's right. Aaron, I do want to ask, did you get an opportunity to talk or know anything about your donor or your donor's family? No, not at all. At that time, the doctors weren't really in that mindset to have us meet the family of the donors.
I think they were too afraid of what that might cause, you know, either guilt or you owe this, that they went on the negative side of that kind of relationship where I think now we see that completely different. That it's actually incredibly healing for both sides. I saw a video, I think I tweeted on Facebook where I'm going to cry again. The father that I believe I'm telling the story correctly, lost his daughter and then donated her organs and her heart went to another gentleman and the father went on like a running across country to meet a recipient to promote donor awareness.
And that happened here in Louisiana. Oh, was that? Was it in Louisiana? Yeah, we got to be there to witness that, to capture that embrace and that was amazing.
I'm glad it reached you. We're trying to reach new folks. Yeah. Yeah, I shared it.
I shared it with my small group of transplant recipients that I have that I stay connected with and I want to make a Facebook page for recipients and dialysis patients more in a support sense. I haven't thought of a great name. And there's another gentleman that's on dialysis right now that I did some interview with. It's called forever is tomorrow is named Scott Burton and he's trying to promote more and that's kind of where I really need to get to have that and to talk more about it.
Let me go backwards. I kind of trailing off on how to keep talking about this. So let's talk about it. So at that time, no, they did not want to do it.
We have a suspicion that it was a child. We don't have, I can't verify that at all. Only because I don't know why I think my mom should answer that question and she could remember why we think that I think somebody was in the elevator when an organ was coming up the elevator while I was getting prepped. But there was a reason why we thought it was a child or a baby that had passed away.
That's not uncommon. But again, I can't verify that. And that would lend itself maybe for why it lasted 29 years as well. That's how we usually, even now we try to match, you know, especially because of size, but pediatrics usually get priority with other pediatrics, especially back in that day.
So you are most likely. Well, as it should, as well as it should, you know, to give those chances we all take for granted, you know, because I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have. Oh my gosh, I wouldn't have to voice.
I wouldn't have been on the Star Trek. I wouldn't have met my least. I wouldn't have all the things that I've had. Yeah.
And we call it a gift. And you were showing us how precious that gift is. Exactly. Now you said that kidney lasted you about 30 years.
So then what happened? What'd you have to do there? Well, so I'll go backwards a little bit, which is kind of funny. We'll get me out of being so emotional.
As I had the kidney, one of the decisions I made, I got into acting because I might feel it was snippling. I think I'm making her cry. Don't make me cry. Don't make me cry.
I can't talk if I'm crying. It's contagious. I'm not into acting because I fell in love with it. And I also looked at it differently.
Our experiences in life really dictate how we see life and how we deal with life. And when I was out of high school, I was going to a JC and I was pursuing acting. And I got to a point where I'm like, okay, I'm going to fail at either one. I've got to make a decision for one or the other.
And I thought to myself, well, I've got my transplant now. I don't know how long it will last. Am I going to get me four years? Am I going to get me five?
I have no idea. So I'm going to go pursue acting now because I have the opportunity to do it. And I don't know where I'm going to go after that. So I'm going to give everything I have into that.
Because if I try to do both, I'm going to fail a boat. So I chose acting. Now we know where that took us. And I got on Star Trek.
I did some other movies. I've had an amazing career up to then. I was like, oh my gosh, come on, just get me through Star Trek. I don't want to lose my kidney through Star Trek.
I'm not going to be able to do this. This is so amazing. So it got me through Star Trek. And then my boys came into my life and I'm like, oh come on.
Okay, now you got to get me till they're 18. You got to last till they're 18. I've got to make it till they're 18. And sure enough, I was so close to they both turned 18.
My youngest turned 18 just last month. So I almost made it to me with 18. But I pretty much did, which was fantastic. And then my kidney started to fail.
It started to fail really, I would say probably back in 2011, we talked about the medicine you briefly brought it up. Back then, for all that time, I was on Imuran, Sanamian Cyclist, Foreign, and Prednisone. My doctor never changed that because he, I think, was from the mentality if it's not real, don't fix it. Let's just keep going.
Your body seems to do work well with it. Everything is doing really well. But I started to get to swim with cells on my hand. And so he didn't really have the answer.
So he said, I want you to go to UCLA. I went to UCLA and the doctors looked at what I was saying, oh my God, what are you doing? We have new meds. This is ancient.
This is so ancient. So he quickly took me off of Sanamian and put me on Rapamian. He didn't put me on program, put me on Rapamian. And I think I was still taking a different form of Cyclist, Foreign, and he completely got rid of Imuran.
He said, that's what's doing this to you. You can't take that anymore. So I went on the new meds and then the squeamist cells minimize a lot to the point where I don't have them anymore, not on wood. But kidney was failing.
And the way he described it is he said, look, kidney is like an old car. We just don't know when it will end. So you just keep going until you can't go anymore. So that was in, I think it was 2011 or 2013, somewhere in that timeframe.
In 2015, in April, my kidney function got down to where I think I'd 18 so I could go on the transplant list. I lost the kidney. And then I went on dialysis. And this time now, because the kidney just failed and stopped, I went to the doctor into the hospital literally the next day, although I waited one day because I had business to take care of.
So I waited one extra day. You called me on a Tuesday on a Monday evening. He said, look, you're in kidney failure. You need to go to the hospital now.
I said, well, give me tomorrow. I got to make phone calls because I have a business to run. And I have to take care of my family, make sure bills are paid. I'll go in on Wednesday.
He said, okay, it's like the Tuesday. He took care of everything, walked in on Wednesday. I was on dialysis late Wednesday evening. And that was a trip.
That was a trip. That was completely different than what I went through when I was 14. When I went 14, I wasn't at that stage where the kidney just completely just, it was done. I don't remember going through anything when I went through this last time.
I thought I was dying. I actually thought I was dying. There was a moment in the hospital where I thought this was it. I closed my eyes and I thought I was done.
It's funny. I woke up and I'm like, I'm still here. It was the way that day my doctor comes in. I thought I was dying.
He's all, you weren't dying. If you were dying, you'd have been in ICU. I go, I could poo me. Yes.
I'm back. Here we go. And this was now a hemodialysis. They put a catheter in my chest because it's obviously official and needs a week or two to be ready for dialysis.
And they put it in my chest. I can never say that word. Dialize. That's a dialyze.
I don't know why I have my brain get stuck on that word. But I kept the catheter because I wanted to go on parrotinil. I didn't want to stay on hemo. And then I got a donor who happened to be a friend of our family.
It's so weird how life works. So her name is Betharins. And I was 19. My mom and I lived in these apartments.
And our neighbor was her family. She wasn't living there because she was at that time a little bit older, just a few years older than me. So we met her then when I was 19. So here I am at 46.
Having a new transplant, she, she offered to donate, went through all the testing, which can be very scary for people because they do such rigorous testing to make sure that the donor is safe, is an excellent match, will give the greatest success for the recipient. And she had the courage to go through all that, went through it, and miraculously happened to be a perfect match. I mean, it's just, I'm sitting there going, how does this happen for me? It's not an understatement to say it's like winning a lottery.
Twice. You hear those people that win a lottery two or three times and like, how does that happen? Well, this is how it happens. There is no rhyme or reason.
There is no number system. There is no statistics that says, well, you do A, B, or C, you win a lottery. So she happened to be a donor. We went through the whole process and they keep talking to you.
Well, we've got a couple more. It's looking good. We'll find out. And you're just like, you're shaking your head going, I hope this works out.
This is incredible. Now, I'll send you're in the waiting room at the hospital the day of the transplant. And then they're putting you under to give you the kidney. And here I am with a year and a half after, you know, still going strong.
And her kidney, her kidney is higher than the previous one I had. The previous one, never got below a 1.6 creatinies. Last time I got my last work, it was 1.1. Now I go on Friday and I'm like, oh, I hope everything's okay because that's what we live with.
We should be always going up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up. So she's doing well? Yes. As far as I am aware, doing very well, I called her last week, I think.
I left a message when I happened to her back from her. So as far as I'm aware, she's doing very well. But the gift she gave me, you know, it's incredible. And it's such a, you run out of adjectives to describe what it feels like to receive something like that from someone.
Because there are any words to express the gratitude that one feels because it's literally life-changing. And she's part of my family, you know, now, and I try to keep in touch with her. You know, it's kind of like family, you know. They're always, always a part of you and within you and of you.
And if you don't speak to them for a few weeks or a month or you speak to them a couple of days between. Well, and you mentioned volunteering here in Louisiana. We work with those volunteers. And that's what inspires folks to sign up.
So we appreciate you joining us here on the podcast. You will reach so many. And I saw at some of the events that you attend. You also talk about donation that too is working.
But we encourage folks, if you want to volunteer, tell your story, go to that center near you and let them know you telling your story. I think that's going to save so many more lives. And that's just amazing. I do want to say one thing that I hope that an unsure of has reaches them and inspires them.
And a lot of times I don't think they realize that as their life becomes accustomed to dialysis. And many, many probably can't get a transplant and many can. And so I hope the ones that can will talk about it, consider it, talk with their family, their doctors or nurses and take those steps. Because I wouldn't have everything I've had.
If I didn't take that chance, when Mary Ellen, my friend, mom said, you know, you've got to take that step. And I hope it reaches them. As well as all the people to just say, I will go there. It's a shortage.
You know, it's my wait time when I went on dialysis with seven to ten years and best paid to that. She made that four month. And if more people did that, more people would be out there living their lives. They may not get that opportunity unless somebody says, I'll be a donor.
So anyway, okay. So I just wanted to say that. Wow, incredible story. Thank you, Aaron, for being here with us on a gift of life, for making time to be with us and wanting to share your story.
On a podcast, we always say it takes one person to make a difference. Way to go, Aaron. You are helping to make life happen. And we can't wait to see what comes next.
We have reached the hero segment here on the gift of life. And we've been talking about living donation. Today we honor a living donor hero, her name, Melody Goldman. And she saved a life of her husband, his name is Mark.
He wrote this, my wife is my hero. I was diagnosed last year with in-stage renal disease and was hospitalized numerous times. I was informed that I had to start dialysis treatment. My only hope was a kidney transplant.
My wife volunteered to be tested and we learned she was a perfect match. Now Mark recently received that kidney from his wife and he is thriving with here. Those who know him well say he is doing just great, which we love to hear. Although he is a recipient in this situation, he is one of our heroes.
He's been a major supporter for Lopa over the last 30 years. He's been a coroner's investigator locally in the New Orleans area and he's helped us save many, many other lives. We now pause to celebrate Melody for being a living donor and giving Mark the gift of life. In our question and answer segment that Joe, this one's coming your way, I want to help by donating a kidney to someone in need.
Do I have to know someone who's waiting or can I donate to a stranger? Of course, the majority of the time that person knows they have a family member or a friend or someone that they know maybe in a church group, but you can also donate anonymously, just from an altruistic standpoint. Generally speaking, you'll go to your local transplant center or your favorite transplant center, unos.org, you can go to unos.org, you can select the living donation tab and they will tell you basically everything you need to know about living donation and can help point you in the right direction. So if you have any questions about this segment or other segments that we've done, please give us a call.
504-648-3477. Or you can send us your question at info at lowbatt.org. Episode 63, I guess we're going to call it our Sartrecht episode. What do you think?
Yeah. It was part of that. We certainly want to thank Aaron Eisenberg for coming on Nog. Nog.
He's now in... Are you good? Yep. He's on V-space 9.
His raw emotion even this far out was just so palpable. And usually I try to keep a bit of a distance between my emotion and when I heard him share that it was like, oh my, this is so real and with such feeling that how would you not want to help others through this means? You know, really good. And I just want to hear more.
Like he's so positive about it, but then the road wasn't always so positive. What a guy. And then took the time. So he has all these special credits now to his name, but he made this a priority to be with us because he wanted to share information about working tissue and I don't know.
And help others. That's what's so great about it. I want to do more of it. Yeah, that's right.
That is a cool dude. Did we say cool? Do we say cool? I'll say cool.
Well, we're not cool. Maybe we should ask Sally. Yeah, well, okay. Let's not ask him.
So thanks to Nog. Yeah. As he makes his trek around.