Brick by brick: Martial arts champ hasn't let kidney disease slow him down

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Brick by brick: Martial arts champ hasn't let kidney disease slow him down

BY HILLARD GROSSMAN • FLORIDA TODAY • September 1, 2008

Breaking bricks, as many as 14 at a time, hasn't been much of a problem for Keenan Brown.

Breaking away from a newfound life of kidney disease and the dialysis treatments that shadow him, however, has been much tougher.

Keenan Brown is the biggest star -- and at 6-foot-91/2, 318 pounds, the biggest man -- at this weekend's 23rd annual Cocoa Beach Surf Company NKF Labor Day Surf Festival.

And he's not even a surfer.

But he's a champion -- in martial arts and in the game of life, which lately keeps pitching him curveballs, or widening his golf bunkers, or any other of those wacky sports metaphors that would send an otherwise healthy 48-year-old athlete into, well, a ball of confusion.

Just 31/2 years ago, Brown had a medical checkup after his limbs began swelling from fluid retention (edema) and was diagnosed with renal failure, congestive heart failure and diabetes -- all at once -- from a simple blood test.

"Just like that," he says, in a hushed whisper. "But I don't want it all to end, so I do what I can to stay here."

Brown's wife, Carmelita, was staggered by the news at first.

"I was frightened," she says, "then I was angry. We both thought we were doing the right thing, staying active and both working two jobs because we wanted to accomplish a goal we had set for the rest of our lives. We were controlling his weight, but didn't see the diabetes (complications) until it was too late."

After receiving his shocking medical diagnosis, Brown decided to try martial arts, a sport his son, Joshua, now 8, already was enjoying.

"I just did it so I could compete with my son," Brown says. "Just wanted to be closer to him."

It didn't take long for him to excel -- just like he had done in basketball, earning a scholarship to Ashland (Ohio) University and later a tryout with the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers and coach Bill Musselman.

"That was a wonderful experience," Brown says.

But in martial arts, Brown quickly became the best in his field. He set five world records, including speed, power and creative brick breaking. On March 12, in Dearborn, Mich., he smashed 100 bricks in 13 seconds to set a world mark.

The one-inch thick, 10-pound cinder bricks cost $2 apiece.

"I usually have to buy them myself," Brown says.

The first-degree black belt also qualified for the Beijing Olympics by winning the World Games in Hawaii and national events in Orlando and Carbondale, Ill.

But he never saw The Great Wall.

Because America's dialysis machines (filters the blood) are not compatible with those in China, Brown stayed home.

"They said it was poor air quality in the water," he says.

He couldn't risk that chance.

"What he has done is remarkable," says surf contest organizer Rich Salick of Rockledge, who still perseveres despite the daily struggles of three kidney transplants.

This past week, Brown hopped into a truck with Carmelita, Joshua and their good friend, Melvin Logan, and drove from their home in Romulus, Mich. (45 minutes east of Detroit) to Shepard Park, where he has been providing inspiration to others while exhibiting his remarkable brick-breaking technique.

"Me being on dialysis makes it that much more remarkable," he chuckles before splitting bricks with the side of his hand, his forearm and even his head.

He requires dialysis three times a week (he does it in Melbourne while he is here), and because of his size, the treatments are 51/2 hours a day, nearly three hours more than normal, yet down from the 8 hours when he started. Thanks in part to his athletic activity, his daily medications have been cut from 20 to eight, and he no longer requires insulin.

"I came down here to help expose that dialysis is not a death sentence," Brown says. "Whatever you do, whether it's break bricks or just get up out of a chair and walk, you should live life to its fullest. And, go get checked out, because you never know."

A big ring with a ruby-colored stone on his left hand signifies his membership in the USA Martial Arts Hall of Fame in Richmond, Ind.

It's quite an accomplishment for a little boy who grew up in an orphanage after losing his mother at a young age.

Here is a guy who graduated from college, went into nursing and spent 20 years as a social worker, and then became a financial analyst.

He realizes the next Summer Olympic Games are in London in 2012.

"Hopefully, I'll have a chance," he says. "Hopefully, I'll have a chance."

Contact Grossman at 242-3676 or hgrossma16@yahoo.com

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