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by Susan Dugan
Cancer survivor and West
Washington Park resident Michael Pastur’s Facebook
account lay largely dormant when childhood friend and former classmate Roxanne
Hamilton Guberud sent him a friend request last year.
PHOTOGRAPHER MICHAEL PASTUR HAS REGAINED UNEXPECTED ALLIES, as childhood friends from LaCrosse, Wisconsin have launched a formidable Facebook effort to help locate a kidney donor for the stalwart but debilitated Pastur. Photo by Paul Kashmann
“We went through grade school, junior high, and high school together and
probably hadn’t talked since junior high,” he says. “She’s an emergency ward
nurse in La Crosse, Wisconsin, where I grew up. Within a few weeks of
reconnecting with Roxanne I suddenly had 80 more friends from high school in my
account.”
Guberud was
shocked to learn that over the past several years Pastur
had suffered kidney failure, battled two blood cancers, received a stem cell
transplant, and survived a heart attack. A breast cancer survivor, she vowed to
find him a kidney donor, creating the Facebook page “Help Michael Pastur Get a Kidney” along with other former classmates to
champion the cause.
Pastur had enjoyed
a quintessential American childhood growing up in La Crosse, fishing in the
Mississippi River and building friendships that would last a lifetime. After
graduating from La Crosse Central High School he attended the University of
Wisconsin-La Crosse unsure about his life’s direction. “That’s when I took a
photography class and was instantly hooked,” he says.
He later transferred to Southern Illinois
University where he earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts photography in 1981
and then relocated to Boulder, landing a job in a custom photo shop and later
working in-house at Rocky Mountain Bank Note. Laid off in 1992, he concentrated
on building his freelance photography business while exploring and eventually
practicing holistic mind/body work.
“My older sister had suffered a bout with
environmental illness and what started bringing her back was this special
method of reflexology designed to treat the whole body. I found it fascinating,
and started studying and developing clientele. Several years later I became
certified in something called palm therapy, using traditional palm lines to
work out emotions.” But he deliberately kept his clientele low. “I never quite
knew how to block the energy from people or keep it from depleting my energy.
Quite often my client would leave feeling wonderful but I’d be dragging on the
ground.”
He continued working as a photographer and also began
building custom cameras. “My first major design was taking a Holga – a cheap plastic Chinese camera very popular
with students, that has a real cult following – and making it into a
circuit camera so you could shoot a three-hundred-sixty-degree image. My mother
had always wanted me to be an engineer like my father, and I guess you could
say I started re-engineering cameras.”
A longtime avid runner who ran three-to-five
miles daily up to five times a week and enjoyed robust health, Pastur was only mildly concerned about a troubling
condition that developed as his fiftieth birthday drew near. “I had a history
of things manifesting psychosomatically prior to big birthdays, so I kept
brushing it off when I started getting swelling in my lower legs and ankles. My
mom had had swollen ankles so I just thought – oh, I’ve got Mom’s
ankles.”
As the symptoms worsened, Pastur turned to an herbalist for treatment. “I ended up
gaining 17 pounds of fluid and eventually went to a medical doctor. It turned
out the fluid was a result of my kidneys shutting down. Denver Health first
diagnosed it as a kidney problem and did kidney biopsies and bone biopsies. In
the end there was a diagnosis of two blood cancers causing an overproduction of
bad protein in the blood. The kidneys were responding by dumping all protein
– and with a lack of protein you get fluid build-up.”
Pastur was treated
aggressively with diuretics that did not prevent kidney failure, and spent New
Year’s eve 2009 at Denver Health. “Unfortunately the
diuretics stripped me of all potassium. They sent me home with dangerously low
potassium levels and I ended up having a heart attack just after I’d started
dialysis and right before I was to begin chemotherapy.”
The heart attack fortunately did little or
no damage and Pastur’s case captured the attention of
Denver oncologist Choon-Kee Lee, then practicing at
University Hospital. “He had worked with clients
similar to me but I was one of the several million uninsured. Through the
beginning of 2009 we went through a big mess of trying to get Medicaid to cover
treatment, and finally Medicare came on board because I was considered
permanently disabled as a result of the kidney failure.”
In May 2009 Pastur
underwent a successful stem cell transplant, and spent several weeks in
quarantine at University Hospital until his immune system improved enough to
send him home. “I needed 24/7 care and several of my friends got together, made
up a schedule, and took turns being with me.”
On the transplant list since his cancer was
officially considered in remission, Pastur continues
to wait along with 90,000 others for a life-saving kidney transplant. The
average wait is three to five years and five-to-15 percent of those waiting die
on dialysis. Disability covers his rent but not much else. “The past couple of
years I had some stock from when my mother passed away suddenly appear, but in
all honesty I think I’m looking at bankruptcy; my funds are pretty exhausted.”
Friends have collected money to help with
living expenses. “My friends have been very, very generous and I just feel I’ve
really capped that. At the beginning of the summer I started driving as a
delivery person for Domino’s Pizza. I had done that for many years before I got
sick, to make extra money. Unfortunately this summer has been so brutally hot;
who wants pizza in a hundred degrees?”
Pastur is also
trying to become more physically active but finds it difficult. He broke his
pelvis slipping on ice in 2010, and has gained 50 pounds in the last four years.
“I have dialysis three times a week for four hours at a time and every day
following dialysis I feel like I’ve had the life sucked right out of me.” He
remains optimistic his Facebook friends’ dedicated efforts will find him a
direct or paired donor, which he explains is, “... where the person is not a
match for me but agrees to give up their kidney, with the intention of me
getting the next available (and compatible) kidney from the transplant list.”
These days he stays away from searching his
odds on the internet – “According to what I read online I was supposed to
be dead two years ago” – and remains thankful for the many people who
have stepped up to help, including his former physician. “I was always against
Western medicine – that’s why I got into holistic treatments. But I had
no choice because this was so aggressive. Everything I was against I just had
to learn to accept – and Dr. Lee was so amazing. He saved my life. We
developed such a relationship. I can’t be grateful enough for that.”
If you can help or would like to spread the
word, look for the “Help Michael Pastur Get a Kidney”
page on Facebook.
(Editor’s
note: View a widely diverse selection of Michael Pastur’s
photography at www.flickr.com/photos/michael-pastur/sets/.) |
