A talented rapper learns the true meaning of brotherly love when his older brother saves his life by donating him his kidney.
Posted: 2:52 PM Jun 24, 2011Reporter: Maureen McFadden | WNDU NBC 16, South Bend, Indiana
A talented rapper learns the true meaning of brotherly love when his older brother saves his life by donating him his kidney.
"I can't explain what it feels like to get a chance at a new life," said 28-year-old David Petterson.
Petterson, widely known on the airwaves as David Rush, now raps about his new life. His old one almost cost him his life.
"When you're running around at that age, you're really not thinking of your kidneys shutting down," said Petterson.
A few years ago Petterson, who weighed 400 pounds at the time, had just signed a multi-year music deal. Then doctors said he had one year to live. Around the time, he began to shed the pounds thanks to rigorous performances, allowing him to be placed on the organ recipient list.
"When it came to that point where it needed to be done, my mind was already made up," said Petterson.
While waiting for the surgery, Petterson took his dialysis machine on the road and cleaned his blood backstage between concerts until he got his new kidney.
Petterson's older brother and road manager, Dwaine Haskins, was a match. So in Novermber of 2010, the operation was successful performed.
Nephrologist Jeffrey Feldman encourages everyone, especially African Americans, to consider donating their organs.
"Patients, particularly African American's, will present with severe moderate severe kidney disease," said Feldman, medical director at Davita Plainfield Dialysis Center.
In fact, African Americans are four times more likely than Caucasians to develop kidney failure. However, a new survey finds that only 17 percent of African Americans with kidney failure knew that it developed as a consequence of diabetes and high blood pressure.
African American men ages 20 to 29 are ten times more likely to develop kidney failure.
Early kidney disease has no symptoms and if left undetected, it can progress into kidney failure with little or no warning.
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