RADIO.COM Sports Catches Up With Kidney Transplant Survivor’s Encounter With Patrick Mahomes
In an interview with RADIO.COM Sports, kidney transplant survivor Logan Bradley shared his experience with NFL star Patrick Mahomes.
Talking with RADIO.COM Sports lead video producer BJ Barretta, Bradley recalled the moment he started facing what might have been the most challenging part of his life. He shared going home between softball games to see his mother crying.
"As soon as she saw me, she just turned around and started crying even harder," Bradley said. "And she wasn't really telling me what was going on, so I thought am I dying?"
Bradley is an aspiring baseball athlete, looking up to St. Louis Cardinals Yadier Molina and Matt Carpenter. The Nevada, Missouri youth was looking to play collegiate baseball, until the sad news arrived July 2016 when he was rushed to the local hospital. What he thought was diabetes--from all the water he had--turned out to be something different. Doctors found that he was actually missing his right kidney, and his remaining left kidney is only functioning at 20 percent of its capacity.
A Long Journey and a Brief Experience With Patrick Mahomes
Months later, in March 2017, Logan was placed on the donor list. While he quickly found a matching donor and a kidney transplant scheduled soon after, the challenge was not entirely over yet.
"The kidney rejection probably started, I would say September of 2017," Bradley continued. "I was just crying a lot, you know, it sucked. I couldn't believe it really." He then spent the next two years in and out of the hospital. At one of these episodes, Logan met Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. The star QB dropped by him at Mercy Children's Hospital in Kansas City, signing a football and even playing Madden with him.
"I remember he threw an interception," the young man recalled, chuckling. "He just asked if I ever played football and just kind of had a normal conversation with me. It was pretty cool."
While doctors prohibited a gridiron return, Logan was able to continue playing baseball with Nevada High School through his junior and senior years. At the time of the interview with RADIO.COM, Bradley works at a Harrisonville-based Waltermart distribution center. Though he is looking for another kidney transplant, he said that doctors are optimistic this time: with his new kidney to last for about 20 to 25 years.
Saved by a Mysterious Donor
In the corresponding RADIO.COM writeup about Bradley's experience, it explains how he never knew who was the kidney donor that might as well have saved his life back then. "I think they said he was in his twenties and he just had a brain injury and died," he recalls. He also notes seeing someone walk carrying coolers, commenting how it could've been his own kidney within.
Logan's mother, Melanie, explains that they have been preparing themselves to put Logan on dialysis. Aside from her son, Melanie adds that "there were several lives that were saved by that young man."
Coming off fresh from the Super Bowl LV, Patrick Mahomes just faced off against one of the best in this generation, Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Tom Brady.
