Luke Dowse

Thanks for visiting my Fundraising Page for Ride for Inesh 2020!

This is for my close friend Inesh Hensman. In 2011, Inesh (also known as 'Freshly') was diagnosed with Kidney Disease.

In short, the kidney's role is to clean your blood and filter waste through your urine. When the kidney's don't function properly, the waste builds up in the body and can have a detrimental effect on our health.

Due to this; Inesh required a mixture of dialysis in the hospital and at home. Dialysis is a medical treatment designed to filter the waste out as the kidney's are unable to do so.

In 2012; Inesh's mother lovingly donated one of her kidney's for transplantation to Inesh. After recovering from this and returning to work; in 2016 Inesh became unwell and sadly it was understood that his body had rejected the transplant.

In October 2019, I was in Nice, France and I received a call from our good friend Ben letting me know that Inesh was in a critical state. Inesh had been feeling unwell one morning and was found unconscious in his bed by his older sister. Inesh had a cardiac arrest and miraculously Inesh's sister performed CPR and with help of medicos his life was saved.

As a result of this cardiac event; Inesh's brain was deprived oxygen and thus had a hypoxic brain injury (stroke). Inesh spent several days in the Intensive Care Unit at Monash Hospital where there was serious concern for his ability to survive. When I was overseas his father emailed me saying he was experiencing "the darkest days of his life". Fortunately, Inesh did survive but not without ongoing problems.

Inesh required several weeks in hospital re-learning to walk and speak amongst other negative health effects. I have been fortunate to be able to help Inesh with his physical rehabilitation and have been greatly impressed at his ongoing commitment to the unenjoyable parts of rehab in order to optimise his long-term outcome.

Inesh has now returned to work part-time. He still requires at-home dialysis 3 days per week (stuck in his bedroom for the majority of 3 days) as well as other medical appointments. Inesh is now on a waitlist for a second kidney transplant.

In reading about Kidney Disease, young adults consistently across the board comment on the major impact it has on their livelihood; their ability to travel, have fun with friends, progress their career due to their need to dialyse.

I have first-hand seen our good mate, who loves to have fun, have the majority of his 20s impacted by this disease. Therefore a small group of Inesh's close friends decided to support him by taking on a bike ride.

The intention was to cycle from Sydney and arrive in Melbourne on his birthday (10/10/2020) however due to COVID border closures we will now be riding for 24 hours on a stationary bike (virtual ride on Zwift). On Saturday February 6th at 8am we will be riding in Inesh's family's garage as a group until 8am on Sunday February 7th.

Aims of the ride will be to raise money; with 50% going directly to Inesh so that his life can be enjoyed that little bit more and 50% will go to support Kidney Health Australia. Inesh's family have also asked that we raise awareness of this often little known Kidney Disease and the much needed increase for kidney donors.

Even if you do not know Inesh; please support Inesh and Kidney Health Australia with whatever money you can afford as this will be making a great difference.

You can sponsor me and leave a message by selecting the donate button above.
Thanks for supporting our efforts in raising money for this cause!