Essential cowboy is laid low
Veteran TV stuntman, rodeo rider finds himself saddled with bad kidneys08:48 AM CST on Saturday, January 6, 2007
By JENNIFER EMILY / The Dallas Morning News
FRISCO – Kevin Bode stands out as a true cowboy – even in Texas.
His black cowboy hat, spurred boots and polite manner suggest he's most at home on a horse or bucking bull. Unfortunately, he's spending too much time these days at a dialysis clinic.
The 48-year-old's kidneys are ruined from high blood pressure and from his bruising career as a stuntman and rodeo cowboy. He worked on shows like Dallas and Walker Texas Ranger and was the Frisco RoughRiders' first mascot. Doctors told him that the painkillers he took for injuries probably contributed to his health problems, he said.
For now, dialysis is saving his life. But he needs a kidney transplant.
Mr. Bode spends four hours Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays hooked up to a dialysis machine. It removes the excess fluids and harmful potassium that healthy kidneys filter from the body.
The machine cleans his blood through a port implanted in his chest. He loses four or five liters of liquid impurities a session.
"I hate to be tethered to that damn machine," Mr. Bode said. "But the alternative is dying."
He often sleeps or watches television during treatment. He prefers a good Western flick but will settle for football. Recently, he and longtime girlfriend Marilyn Brown began playing checkers. Mr. Bode's won the three games they've played.
Ms. Brown, 58, recently packed the checkers, grapes and his headphones into a bright pink bag. Mr. Bode begrudgingly carried it.
"I'm the only man I know who carries a pink bag," he said after weighing in for a recent dialysis session.
Waiting for a deceased donor takes three to five years, said Dr. Christopher Lu, who heads the pancreas-kidney transplant center at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. The reason is that relatives of people who die unexpectedly don't usually donate organs.
Half of recipients get kidneys from live donors, usually a spouse or relative. Mr. Bode hopes a relative steps up. Doctors haven't tested any of them for a match.
Mr. Bode keeps his composure when talking about his health except when Ms. Brown tears up or when he talks about his six beloved horses. They – and Ms. Brown – are his therapy, he said.
"No matter how bad I feel, when I walk into the horse pen, I feel better," he said, wiping his eyes with a tissue.
He and Ms. Brown have been together since 1994 as a couple and as film company owners. They met at a post office. Ms. Brown immediately told her friends that she met "this beautiful cowboy."
Riding calves at 9
The middle of three boys, Mr. Bode grew up splitting his time between Chicago and his grandparents' 700-acre farm in Missouri.
He wrestled and boxed during the school year in Chicago and rode horses on the farm during breaks. Mr. Bode laughs when recalling how he got "in all kinds of trouble" for riding calves by age 9.
He entered the U.S. Coast Guard at 18. Based in Oregon, he performed rescues by jumping from helicopters and boats and then began working as a television stuntman. He also studied criminal justice at a community college.
Mr. Bode graduated from Southeast Missouri State in the mid-'80s with an agribusiness degree. He planned to run a ranch.
But he fell in love with rodeo riding and stunt work. He separated and dislocated shoulders, broke several bones and had his lower lip rammed by a bull's horn.
His years falling off horses made him an ideal stuntman, he said with a laugh. "They liked the way I fell down when I got shot."
In 1992, The Dallas Morning News pictured him in a fashion spread as the essential Dallas cowboy.
He now spends part of the year in Los Angeles on career work. This year, he'll be in Frisco more. He hopes that gives him more time to train the horses.
Illness snuck up
Before his diagnosis last summer, Mr. Bode suffered a slow slide into poor health.
He was always tired and in pain. He lost 20 pounds because he wasn't hungry. One night, he had trouble breathing and couldn't sleep.
The next day, he couldn't lift a saddle on to his horse. Finally, he drove to the emergency room, and doctors gave him the bad news. They told him that he was weeks from death.
Dialysis saved his life – and, to some extent, his career.
He just finished a Toyota commercial that airs this month. It's the first time he's worked in months. He doesn't know when his next job will come. He's always tired, and the dialysis regimen makes life difficult. Money is tight.
"I'm trying to still work," he said. "But my income has greatly depreciated."
Despite his chronic illness, Mr. Bode remains positive. Most other kidney-failure patients have a slew of other health problems. Nurses told him – when he was feeling down – that he was the healthiest person in the room.
"I'm healthy," he said. "I just have a health issue."
Ms. Brown finds cheerfulness harder. Mr. Bode talks frequently about his plans: buying a roping horse, buying cattle, returning to stunt work.
"He's making all these plans," she said tearfully when Mr. Bode was out of earshot. "I'm just afraid he won't get to do them."
E-mail jemily@dallasnews.com
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