Martinez - who has coached Brady since the Patriots quarterback was 13 years old - was given less than a month to live back in June, a death sentence that forced the family to set its affairs in order.
Martinez got a reprieve soon after. A faulty pacemaker was identified and removed, and a new drug, midodrine, was added to raise his blood pressure high enough to keep him on dialysis. And yet, without a new kidney, he would only have three months to a year to live.
That was seven months ago.
“I just try to wait,’’ said Martinez, 66. “Occupy my mind with silly things like football.’’
He spends those four days a week here, at Satellite Dialysis. Another day is lost to doctor’s appointments. His life is consumed by his disease, brought on by diabetes, by all the hope that so far has mostly been in vain.
“It’s pretty invasive of your time,’’ Martinez said. “But the alternative is you don’t live. So you understand the severity of not getting this - which is you die.’’
Fighting chance
Johns Hopkins could call at any moment. The phone could ring and his life could change, a donor identified and matched, his dreams answered. It needs to happen soon.
There are 60 potential donors lined up, the result of a series of posts that Brady put on Facebook, urging people to be tested through MatchingDonors.com to see if they are a match. That fact brightens a situation that seemed lost not long ago, when Martinez was rejected for transplant by UCLA - something that still makes him angry.
“It’s really exciting and yet I don’t want to get too optimistic because I have before and then it didn’t work,’’ Martinez said. “In the back of my mind I’m really excited and in the front of my mind I’m saying, ‘Be careful, don’t buy in too much.’ I don’t want to go through that again.’’
They don’t want to. They can’t. Plus, they know Martinez’s time is limited. There is only so much longer the dialysis machines can keep him going.
