Learning how to support the National Kidney Foundation Serving Maryland and Delaware as survivors and donors gather for a signature family awareness event. Let Executive Director Lisa Zawacki tell you about this year’s Maryland Kidney Walk at UMBC on October 19th.
Nestor Aparicio discusses the National Kidney Foundation’s Kidney Walk on October 19th at UMBC with Lisa Zawacki, the event’s executive director. The walk is part of the foundation’s 75th anniversary, aiming to raise awareness about kidney disease, which affects 37 million people annually. Lisa highlights that 90% of those with kidney disease are unaware, and 80% have indicators in their health records. The event will feature food trucks, superheroes, and a local marching band. Nestor shares his personal connection through his wife’s bone marrow transplant and encourages listeners to participate, sign up, or sponsor the walk.
- [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Go get your blood work done to check your kidney health.
- [ ] Sign up for the Kidney Walk online at kidney walk.org/Maryland.
- [ ] Reach out if you have any questions or want to get involved as a sponsor or volunteer.
Kidney Walk at UMBC on October 19th
- Nestor Aparicio introduces the segment, mentioning the National Kidney Foundation and their annual Kidney Walk event.
- Nestor welcomes Lisa Zawacki, the executive director of the National Kidney Foundation, to discuss the event.
- Lisa mentions that the Kidney Walk is in its 17th or 18th year and is part of the 75th anniversary of the National Kidney Foundation.
- Nestor shares his personal connection to the cause, mentioning his wife’s bone marrow transplant and his interactions with former Ravens President Dick Cass, a kidney donor.
Awareness and Education About Kidney Disease
- Lisa highlights the importance of awareness, noting that 90% of people with kidney disease are unaware they have it, and 80% have indicators in their health records.
- Lisa shares her personal experience of discovering she had stage three kidney disease through routine blood work.
- Nestor and Lisa discuss the significance of early detection and the role of medical checkups in identifying kidney issues.
- Lisa emphasizes the need for people to ask their doctors to check for kidney disease and to be proactive about their health.
Community Engagement and Event Details
- Lisa talks about the various activities planned for the Kidney Walk at UMBC, including food trucks, superheroes, Star Wars characters, and a local marching band.
- Nestor and Lisa discuss the importance of community gatherings and the positive impact of bringing survivors and their families together.
- Lisa mentions the presence of Ravens super fans and the timing of the event during the Ravens’ bye week.
- Nestor encourages listeners to sign up for the event, either as participants, sponsors, or volunteers, and to visit the Kidney Walk website for more information.
Personal Health and Advocacy
- Nestor shares his own experience of scheduling a colonoscopy after years of neglecting his health checkups.
- Lisa commends Nestor for taking the initiative to prioritize his health and encourages others to do the same.
- Nestor and Lisa discuss the importance of self-advocacy and being mindful of one’s health.
- Lisa provides insights into managing kidney health, including the impact of diet and the importance of regular medical checkups.
Final Thoughts and Encouragement
- Nestor emphasizes the importance of the Kidney Walk event and the positive impact it has on the community.
- Lisa reiterates the need for continued awareness and education about kidney disease.
- Nestor encourages listeners to participate in the event and to support the National Kidney Foundation’s efforts.
- The segment concludes with Nestor thanking Lisa for her participation and highlighting the importance of community involvement in health initiatives.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Kidney Walk, National Kidney Foundation, UMBC, October 19th, kidney disease awareness, kidney donors, kidney recipients, caregivers, health screenings, corporate wellness, 75th anniversary, kidney health, blood work, community event, sponsorships.
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Lisa Zawacki
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, AM, 1570 Taos in Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive, positively into the fall time of the year here, where we get to talk about good things going on the community. I’ve had some recurring charities and community organizations out there that we’d love to support here, along with our Maryland crab cake Tour presented by the Maryland lottery. So we’re getting out. We’re eating some crab cakes around town and trying to get folks out to do good things. And the National Kidney Foundation reaches to me a couple times a year. I’ve got some great food and met some great people at their sante event. This is their fall event, and they do a kidney walk every year, I always have to get the time, the place, the date, the link, right, but it’s a kidney walk.org and we welcome Lisa zawacki, one of our defending champions, back in as the executive director of all things locally for the National Kidney Foundation. And on the the 19th of October, which is my birthday week, so I can walk it off. I in the the backside is they’ll be over at UMBC doing this. Lisa, welcome in. How many years we’ve been doing this? A long time, this kidney walk, right
Lisa Zawacki 01:08
morning. Yes, thank you for having them happy to be here. Yes. This is the, I think it’s the eighth, 17th or 18th, annual festival, annual Walk. So it’s, you know, it’s one of those things. This is the 75th anniversary for the National Kidney Foundation. And so this walk is kind of a big deal, because we’ve been spending 75 years trying to bring awareness and education and get everybody informed about how to take care of themselves.
Nestor Aparicio 01:37
Well, education is part of this, and along my life’s highway, I have met donors. I have met survivors. My wife is a bone marrow transplant survivor, which I thought involved Texas Chainsaw Massacre opener. You know, it came in a bag, like a kidney transplant. Survivors and people that are testimony to tell this story. It really is a miraculous part of modern medicine. And in our lifetimes, how much treatment has changed, survivorship has changed. And you know, I’ve met many people, including former ravens President Dick Cass kidney donors as well, right?
Lisa Zawacki 02:19
You know, I think what’s really a crazy, scary statistic is that 90% of people who have kidney disease don’t even know they have it, and 80% of those people have indicators in their current health records right now. So there’s a big, big awareness about asking your doctors to check because I can speak personally, unfortunately, fortunately, I’m very lucky, but I saw my numbers one year in my blood work, and I thought, are they supposed to be red? I don’t think they’re supposed to be red. And so I didn’t say anything. Two years later, I asked, and I turns out, I have stage three kidney disease and I’m healthy, no symptoms. Feel Fine, and it’s just, you know, I think it’s really easy to not pay attention to something if you don’t feel well. And you know, kidney disease really is this underlying, very prolific. 37 million people are impacted or pass away from kidney disease every year. It’s one of the top 10 killers. And so I think you know this, also hear
Nestor Aparicio 03:27
the word dialysis and treatment when you hear that word, right? I mean, that’s right. Disease is involved,
Lisa Zawacki 03:31
that’s right. And I think that, you know, we want to make sure that people are just having the conversations, right, just asking the questions, and that sometimes that’s hard because you don’t know what you’re asking. And so we really want to focus on paying attention, being visible, engagement. And you know, that’s why this walk is really important. You know, there are people who are donors, living donors. There are people who are recipients. There are caregivers. You know, I was a caregiver for somebody who donated a kidney 20 years ago. So, you know, it’s, I’m very lucky that it’s been something that I’ve been aware of, but now I feel really committed to the service part of the education and getting the word out.
Nestor Aparicio 04:13
Well, it really does come full circle, right? When you start to meet survivors. And I think it’s so important that people get together and they do celebrate together. I tell my wife that all the time, because my wife is a survivor 12 years later, it’s just not something we want to talk about. It’s just not I mean, my wife has got gotten up and giving speeches. We’ve raised hundreds of 1000s of dollars. We it’s just there’s a point where it’s not like we did our time. But every time we get closer to this, it brings you back into the fire a little bit, but it also lets you know where you’ve been, and for survivors to get together and families to get together on a nice day, let’s hope it’s a nice day on the 19th, we hope, and all that, but you do put it this time of year when the leaves are falling, the weather gets a little better, and it’s hopefully a nice morning to take a walk on October 19. Right?
Lisa Zawacki 04:58
Absolutely. And we’ll have. Food trucks. We’re going to have superheroes. We’re going to have some Star Wars characters. There’ll be kids corners. We’re hoping to get a local marching band. We’re kind of waiting on that, but, you know, it’s going to be a fun event. It’s going to be something where people can come together and have some fun.
Nestor Aparicio 05:20
Well, it’s the 19th of October. So what happens over at Erickson field at 9am on Sunday the 19th? And first thing I need to do, and um, because I’m Baltimore, in here, Sunday, 19, October, rams and the 12th. Oh, it’s ravens by weekend. Look at that.
Lisa Zawacki 05:36
That’s right, we will have a major offense. Who is one of the Ravens super fans who will be there. And fortunately, it is a bye week, so he’s able to come.
Nestor Aparicio 05:47
Well, I encourage everybody, so just sign up online, right? And this is you want to get some people to sponsor you. You want to walk, you want to give you want to have information, you want to be a volunteer. All of that’s available up on the website.
Lisa Zawacki 06:00
That’s right, it’s kidney walk.org, backslash Maryland. You can go, you can sign up. There’s already teams out there. You can, you know, we’re still accepting sponsorships. We you know, if you have any questions, absolutely, you can reach out. We’d love to talk to you. We’d love to connect you, if you have you know, one of the things that we do is we go into businesses and do corporate wellness programs where we’re teaching the organizations about how to be mindful. And so, you know, everything from the walk to getting together to do health screenings, well, we do it all. And we’re really excited about being a part of the community and really in in introducing these kind of new programs and celebrating our 75th anniversary.
Nestor Aparicio 06:43
Well, for all of you, Lisa zawaki is here. She’s from the National Kidney Foundation, and we’ll talk more about local and sante and other things that we’ve done here, because you do different events. But the kidney walk is the 19th of October. Um, it’s come to me here. Uh, GBMC is my newest sponsor, and they’re sponsored a hotline here, and I should give them a little bit of love too, but I’m a 56 year old, at least, I think, knock on wood, healthy guy. I haven’t had a checkup in my marriage. I’ve been married 22 years, and my wife’s like, you don’t get checkups. And I’m like, I’m that guy, right? So I have that wife that’s prodding me and saying, dude, at some point you got to get a colonoscopy. And I have doctors on and people like you on. I do a whole week. I do a couple Super Bowl every year in February, talking about everything from hunger to colonoscopies. And I finally have my colonoscopy scheduled. I’m going to brag about it. It’s it’s eight weeks now, but I’m going to brag about it, but you worry me more with this blood work like because my wife, my wife was a blood machine, right? My wife had leukemia twice. I sat there 155 nights in the hospital. Thank you. Hopkins, uh, saved her life. And I every day we would get, twice a day that we would get read outs of every single thing about her blood stuff I didn’t want to know, didn’t want to understand they’re bringing all sorts of things into the room to keep her alive. And it’s been 11 years, and it’s like a weird sopranos fever dream to me all of that, but to know that how science works, that I’ve been the idiot over the last 12 years that hasn’t had my blood drawn to say, Hey, how’s your this, how’s your that, how’s your whatever right that could be. I’m actually doing that. I’m actually taking my own freaking advice, Lisa and doing that. I just want to brag to you, in the middle of a charity segment that I’m starting to listen and I’m almost 60 as a guy, but like, I’m starting to be managed that I probably should go get a checkup. What do you think?
Lisa Zawacki 08:41
Absolutely, 100% I think that you know, especially with kidney health, that since you don’t feel anything right, you may have high blood pressure, you may have diabetes, all of those things feed into the kidneys, and nobody pays attention to the kidneys, which is why, all of a sudden, you you’re at stage four. You don’t know it, and you have to go on dialysis, right? So I was lucky. I found out at stage three, I manage my health. And what does
Nestor Aparicio 09:05
that mean when they say you’re stage three? That scares the poop out of me. So, like, Wait, so you’re taking a pill, you’re doing something, you’re managing this is there some food you shouldn’t be eating? What shouldn’t drink? What should you not be doing? I just
Lisa Zawacki 09:16
it’s health, being mindful of your health and what you’re eating. Realistically, there’s not a ton of impact. It’s just that my numbers are low. So my efrg, which is, you know, technical kind of jargon for blood work, but it’s one of those indicators, and it’s just, um, it’s the your butt. Your kidneys are the filter, right? And they’re, they’re taking in all this different kind of stuff. If you take a lot of NSAIDs, sometimes that impacts your kidneys, sometimes we don’t know what impacts your kidneys. It just kidneys. It just happens. So that’s right, congratulations. Go get checked out. Ask to get your, you know, ask to look at those numbers. And you just gotta, you gotta pay attention, and you gotta advocate for yourself, which are the two hardest things to do every day, right? We nobody really, hey, just get in the.
Nestor Aparicio 10:00
The phone and making the appointment felt like a complete victory for me. Like the woman called GBMC and I’m putting on the calendar in November, and she said, you want an afternoon appointment? I’m like, It’s colonoscopy, right? Like it’s a morning thing. Like everybody tells me this, right? So, like, I went through all all my education has helped me have a better colonoscopy. But I’ll still say this, just getting on the phone and making the call, getting the doctor, getting the appointment, having them call you back and say, All right, on the 10th of the month, I’m going and doing this so that on the 11th of the month, I get my numbers back and I know my kidneys are okay, or I need to eat more kale, or whatever I need to do, right?
Lisa Zawacki 10:38
Well, you always should eat more kale, but you do get a gold star because you made the effort right like that’s the you get the gold star for doing the right thing and taking care of yourself.
Nestor Aparicio 10:47
Well, National Kidney Foundation is there trying to encourage everybody to do the right thing. And the first thing is you probably should get your blood work done and at least be aware that you have kidneys that you could donate one you might need one. And there are people out there in the world that need a little bit of help. And you can help, Matt, you go walk on the 19th of October over at UMBC, one of my favorite places to walk.
Lisa Zawacki 11:07
Great. Don’t tell me. I look forward to seeing everybody
Nestor Aparicio 11:10
you know. And as far as you want people to walk, sign up. Go to the website. Anything else you need for this, other than just show up with good walking shoes on the 19th, I want to give you a chance to wrap
Lisa Zawacki 11:22
absolutely good walking shoes. We’ll have a DJ, we’ll have people out there. You know, we’re still accepting sponsorships, so if somebody wants to sponsor us and help support us, that would be great. We always want to be able to give the money back to the education piece. But, yeah, come out. Have some food. Take a walk, um, enjoy everybody’s company, get to meet new people, and we really look forward to seeing anybody that can
Nestor Aparicio 11:47
come really the wild thing when I’ve done these over a million years, of being invited to a million of them, over 35 years of doing radio and have people out, is you meet miracles, like people meet my wife, and they come up to her. It’s a little bit of a religious experience for some people who remember when she was 85 pounds involved and kind of hanging on and trying to stay alive, and now they see her, they’re like, Oh my God, you’re a miracle. Well, there’s a lot of miracles, and when you come to events like kidney walks, they’re everywhere, and every story is truly miraculous. So keep up the good work. Lisa. I appreciate you. Thank you. Nestor, I appreciate it. She’s here. She’s the executive director of all things National Kidney Foundation. You can learn about all that they’re doing for the kidney walk on the 19th and they do stuff year round. So it’s not this is a one stop shopping here, but you can go to kidney walk.org and learn about what they do and k, f, I’ve been talking about it for years, and I have so many contacts and people in my life that this, all this happening before my wife had cancer. So we’re out there doing good stuff and trying to raise money and and, yeah, get your numbers. Get some education, get some have some fun. Yeah, and I’m trying, hey, that’s what, that’s what Sundays are for, except ones bye weekend. So you guys pick the perfect weekend, October 19. That’s the Ravens by I investor. We are W, N, S, T AM, 1570 Towson, Baltimore, we’re celebrating 27 years of fun with 27 tasty treats. All are brought to you by curio wellness. You can find it at tastiness out of Baltimore, positive.com you.
