Help Dru and Amanda Through Kidney & Heart Crisis

Andrew Guerra, an Atascosa County Native, Jourdanton Indian, youth sports enthusiast, and a First Responder. Dru’s family is deeply rooted in our county and community. Before Dru had graduated high school, he was already involved in youth sports, coaching Little League baseball. Dru grew up with a deep love of the sport, having been around the organization for a long time while his mother was concession director for the league. He began his youth coaching career at 17 and continued to coach baseball every spring until 2020 when he tried his hand at softball for two seasons. In 2022 he decided it was time to just be a spectator to watch his nephew play varsity baseball. In addition to coaching Little League, Dru also coached youth football. He was a board member and coach for the Rattlers Football organization for several years. Dru, now 42, runs into these young ladies, teenage boys, and young men who all call out to him enthusiastically, “Coach Dru!” everywhere we go. Dru has worked for Atascosa County for just over 20 years. For the last eleven years, he has worked as a 911 Dispatcher for the Atascosa County Sheriff’s Office.

In the late spring of 2022 Dru found out his kidneys were failing and after extensive testing, it was found that his kidneys were functioning at 11%. End Stage Renal Failure was not something that we were expecting. Options were discussed regarding dialysis and Dru decided that Peritoneal Dialysis would best suit our lifestyle.

Dru’s kidney function has since dropped to 4% since starting dialysis. With kidney failure comes other co-morbidities. Dru suffered from third-degree AV block, also called complete heart block, that occurs when no signals reach the ventricles, and he had a pacemaker placed at the end of January of 2023 after a seven-day hospital stay. 100% AFib was discovered starting in February of 2024.

2023 ended with Dru’s peritoneal membrane failing him, making PD dialysis no longer an option. He fell ill in November and had a CVC placed in his chest for emergency dialysis. He started in-center hemodialysis immediately while his body continued to weaken and deteriorate. In January of 2024 Dru was to have his PD catheter replaced and it was discovered that he had an extensive infection of the bowels. By the time this infection was discovered, Dru had already missed two months of work. The PD catheter was removed but was immediately followed by an intrabdominal infection that landed him back in the hospital for nine days, leaving with a wound vac and daily home health visits. Dru returned to work at the Sheriff’s Office mid-March but still had to continue to drive to the south side of San Antonio for Dialysis three times a week. Dru exhausted all of his own vacation time, personal leave, and sick time at the start of the year and was luckily saved by the county’s policy to allow sick leave to be donated to other county employees. He took everything he could at that time as he had to continue to use sick time every day he was scheduled to work but had to go to dialysis.

In late summer of 2024 Dru and his wife, Amanda, began training to do Hemodialysis at home. They both missed three weeks of work in an effort to learn all the things they needed to so that Dru would be able to be at work for his full schedule and do dialysis at home on his schedule. They began this modality mid-September very successfully.

In November a common cold was brought into the house and made the rounds thru all of the grandkids, kids, and Dru’s wife. Dru was the last to catch it. Despite everyone in the house having been down with this cold for just two days, it really lingered for Dru. By day seven with this ailment Dru had been battling with an unrelenting fever and a cough that was preventing him from eating. On the eighth day Amanda took Dru to the hospital in San Antonio because his chest started to hurt. Immediately it was found that Dru had pneumonia. Because of Dru’s End Stage Renal Failure and having a compromised immune system because of it, he was admitted to the hospital. Upon admission a blood culture came back indicating the possibility that he had some sort of blood infection. Confirmation was received two days later that Dru had MSSA. They immediately started administering multiple antibiotics very aggressively. The following day they found cavitary lesions on his lungs. Due to his symptoms Dru was isolated for 24 hours while they tested him for tuberculosis. Thankfully he was cleared.

The next concern was making sure that the MSSA had not spread to his heart and pacemaker. He had a Transesophageal Echocardiogram, and this confirmed that there was no visible bacteria vegetation in his heart valves and that the leads to his pacemaker did not appear infected. Despite these positive results, this did not clear the heart as the source for the MSSA infection. After 6 days on very heavy antibiotics blood cultures came back showing no decrease in infection of the blood. This would mean the source of the MSSA was still quite active and thriving despite treatment. Since the heart was not 100% cleared as the source, and the infection was not being responsive to antibiotics, Dru was transferred to a larger hospital in San Antonio with larger Infectious Diseases & Cardiology teams. Until the origin of the infection is found and responds to treatment, Dru will have to stay in the hospital. Dru is scheduled for surgery to have his pacemaker extracted and replaced with a leadless pacemaker. Once the MSSA is responsive to treatment, Dru will have to continue vigorous antibiotic treatment for six-nine weeks, possibly having to visit a medical facility for administration every eight hours.

At this time, Dru has depleted all PTO options he has at work due to continuous medical emergencies arising. When December comes, he will have no income from work coming into the home and it is unclear at this time when he will be returning to work.