Organ Donor

Melissa Billie Clark Show Podcast

Organ Donor - June 21, 2020 Live Show

Eric Thatcher, Michael Lollo & Marisol Crespo

Eric Thatcher
Hello. My name is Eric Thatcher, and I am 38 years old. I am the youngest of four (4) children (3 boys and one girl) born to David & Roseann and have lived in Coventry, Rhode Island all of my life. As a youngster growing up in the country, I enjoyed all of the things that any boy my age would including fishing, dirt bike riding, and visiting car shows with my family. However, at the age of 11, my immune system began breaking down, and I started experiencing many painful illnesses. After several lengthy hospitalizations, doctors at Children’s Hospital in Boston diagnosed me as suffering from Crohn’s Disease. Despite high doses of medications to treat the symptoms, my flare-ups grew increasingly worse, resulting in additional hospitalizations and missed schools day. I spent much of my middle school years and high school being tutored both at home and in the hospital. In the late 1990’s surgeons at Children’s Hospital removed my large intestine a section at a time. I was given a “temporary” colectomy, which but was assured that once things settled down in my stomach that it would be reversed. It was reversed about a year later though, as I became sicker, they had to perform another colectomy surgically. Not long after, I began to experience a painful medical condition on my buttocks known as fistulas, which required additional surgeries and treatment with mega doses of prednisone that caused me to develop a classic “moon face,” not to mention horrible mood swings. Doctors were forced to eventually remove most of my small intestine along with my anus muscles, assuring that I would have a colostomy bag for the rest of my life. I had what is referred to as “short gut” and watched my weight drop from 175 to 116 lbs. Which for someone 5’11,” tall is not a healthy site. In 2013 I became so severely underweight doctors were forced to place me on TPN, which was feed via a mechanical pump for up to 8 hours a day. After several years of being on TPN, doctors wanted an image taken of my liver, which can be affected by prolonged use of TPN. The image showed a spot on my left kidney that turned out to be a cancerous tumor, and in 2015 surgeons at Brigham & Woman’s Hosp. removed most of the left kidney. Later that same year, my gallbladder died and was removed. In 2016 I underwent a double intestinal transplant at Mt. Sinai Hospital in N.Y. and was told that within six years, I might need a kidney transplant. Two months later, I began experiencing kidney failure.
To get more information on you can help Eric, please head over to https://www.nkr.org/XPP733
and to donate money please check out his go fund me page https://www.gofundme.com/f/a-kidney-for-eric-thatcher

Michael Lollo
Intelligence Bureau, Detective Michael Lollo is a 20 year veteran of the NYPD.

Marisol Crespo
Hairstylist, for over thirty years, Marisol Crespo gives more than beautifies hair. In 2015, she donated one of her Kidneys to a long time friend’s daughter. Marisol is a mother to a son, a proud Puerto-Rican, and a native Brooklynite.

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