Ray McMullen Fine Art Photography

Today I woke up with a bit of excitement knowing that I would be seeing what my toe now looked like after, the partial amputation to remove the bone infection. This would be one step closer to getting my kidney transplant and one step closer to taking back my life. The fact of the matter is that immediately following the toe surgery, my foot felt normal once again. I was in no pain and my foot more specifically, my big toe, was no longer mad (infected). It felt as it did years before the diagnosis. It felt content and normal. This was a bit alarming as I was use to having neuropathy in my feet and now, it felt normal once again. I felt like I was moving my toe and that all was right in the world once again. But, looking at my foot, I knew it wasn’t. The spot where my big toe once sat was a bit shorter and wrapped with bandages. In addition, my foot was secured in an inflatable boot for stability. I kept thinking to myself… What have I done now? In the days after t...

I can attest that there’s nothing more exciting than finding your organ donor. But imagine coming home after a hard dialysis treatment and wishing you didn’t have to do them anymore and there was no light at the end of the tunnel; only to have your best friend, soulmate and wife tell you that she got a call and that she was an excellent match for a kidney transplant.  I had been battling cancer and dealing with dialysis treatments 3 days a week for 2 years. I had been given the news that my cancer was in stringent remission however, I still needed to do dialysis treatments until I could get accepted into a transplant program. I finally did get accepted into the transplant program at Vanderbilt University, the only problem was with my blood type. I was looking at a six to eight year wait. I was happy just to be in the program.  My journey continued, day after day, dialysis treatment after dialysis treatment. I felt like the walls were closing in on me and there was no end...

When you are lying in a bed without the ability to get up and walk away, it makes you to really face the feelings of hearing the words “you have cancer”. You don’t truly know the seriousness of the situation until you hear the words “you are within hours of expiring” and that everyone is going to do everything possible to give you a fighting chance. I was told that the type of cancer I had, Multiple Myeloma, was not going to be a sprint to the finish, where they could just remove the affected area and work with the chemo drugs. But a marathon, and that I needed to pace myself for a long process of treatments and recovery, and even after all the treatments I would always have the cancer. We would have to control it for the rest of my life with drugs. On top of all the cancer and treatments, I was additionally told that the cancer had taken my kidneys. So not only was a now a cancer patient I was also a dialysis patient. The reality in my mind was, had I gone in as soon...

I had just started a job with Home Depot. So, I was up for anything that would bring me some recognition. We had been having a lot of theft in the store and whenever I could be of assistance I was right there. The one thing that I can’t stand is a thief. One evening I got a call from my store manager. He needed some help and asked for me to give him a hand. This was the opportunity I was looking for. I handed off what I was doing to another associate and went in pursuit of my manager. On the way to catch him I passed a display of pipe wrenches, so I picked one of them up as I was not sure what I was walking into. I caught up to him outside in back of the store. He looked at me and told me to be quiet. We slowly approached the back corner of the store, to find a guy picking merchandise off the ground. His partner had been throwing products over the back fence to him and he was collecting the bounty. My adrenaline started to pump and I was ready for anything. We were re...