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The Eric Factor: Why I am missing the mornings

Hello everyone! I wanted to give you an update on when I hope to be back on Good Morning Quad Cities. I am so frustrated that it’s not tomorrow! I am deal...
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Hello everyone!

I wanted to give you an update on when I hope to be back on Good Morning Quad Cities. I am so frustrated that it’s not tomorrow! I am dealing with a few health issues I hope to resolve in the next month or two. In the meantime, Kelsey will be filling in for me on GMQC and News8@11 and I will be taking her weekend shows.

If health stuff makes you queasy, hit the back button before you go on! Coming up in about 2 1/2 weeks, I have a surgery scheduled at the University of Iowa that, according to my doctors, will fix damage that was probably done to my urinary tract back in my childhood days riding bikes. I was a biking fanatic back then! I had an odometer on one of my bikes and put over a thousand miles on it. No joke! I went through many tire tubes and took many headers over the handle bars and crotch-down onto that “boy-bike” bar. Being a tough kid, I always hopped back up on that bike seat and kept going.

Back in November, I underwent surgery for a kidney stone. (Pain I don’t want to experience again!) I had to have a stent put into the tube coming from my kidney. Then, ten days after, had to have everything removed. In that process, the doctors found a stricture in the tube, exactly in the place where you’d hit if you fell onto a bike bar.

I was told there would be a 1 in 4 chance of seeing problems down the line. Well, it took five months for scar tissue to build up and block everything off. About ten days ago I had to have an emergency surgery where a tube was placed into my bladder to keep my kidneys from being drowned. I’ll spare you the fine details, but it’s been really tough dealing with the pain of having this thing coming out of me and my motion is really limited. I have been keeping a positive outlook thanks to some wise words from nurses just before the surgery where they put that damned thing in. “Most of the patients we do this procedure to are paraplegics…and they have to have this in their whole lives. You’ll have it for 30 days.”

Ugh, 30 days is an eternity! But I certainly don’t have it as bad as some people…so no pity party for me. Like that would help anyway! That being said, I am able to work just a few hours each day behind the scenes at WQAD News 8. It’s also the reason I couldn’t really be mobile in front of the weather maps this weekend. And if you see me out and about, no making fun of the really wild pajama pants I have on!

May 18th is the big day! After that, there will be a recovery time that will keep me away for several weeks. But I am confident I will be back, better than before! All of this is happening in a fairly personal spot, but it’s certainly not anything to be embarrassed about. I am thankful I have good insurance that will help me pay for this and even more for a good network of friends, coworkers, and fans who constantly offer well-wishes.

Just a speed bump on this highway we call life. I’ll post updates on my Facebook page. Thank you so much for the support and encouragement! -Eric

 

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