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Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: News Articles => Topic started by: okarol on March 20, 2011, 12:52:12 AM
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Eatery owner ready for what's to come
After a string of trials, Hayes' second chance at life is here
By Richard Carter
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Mackie Hayes was recently given a second chance, when things looked particularly grim for him, his family and his trade.
And, the ever upbeat barbecue expert is not taking those blessings lightly.
Early last year, he was forced to close his five-year trailer business Above Average Barbecue and More.
"The laws changed," he explained, "where concessions trailers had to have a commissary to work out of, because so many trailers were working out of their homes. When Ray's Rib Shack closed down, that closed me down."
He looked everywhere for the right restaurant and the money to buy it, and his dream was growing dim when the owner of the Seventh Street Sandwich Shop on 810 Seventh St. contacted him.
"But the day after we closed (April 1), my wife Cathy took me to the ER and I found out I had kidney failure. I had been passing out and weak but thought I was just getting old."
Hayes had lost the use of both kidneys and was going to have to have dialysis three times a week, four and a half hours at a time in the hospital.
"I didn't want to get dialysis. I had relatives that had been there for years and had died there," he said.
Hayes and his wife traveled to Oklahoma City thinking they were getting a bad diagnosis. There, they put a tube in his stomach so he could do home dialysis, but his stomach quickly bloated and his health went seriously downhill.
"I thought it was going to die. We thought we were going to have make funeral arrangements." He was in and out of hospitals and was in the hospital for one stretch in Oklahoma for 52 days in August and September.
"We were going through our savings, and I was thinking about the restaurant but didn't know what God had in store of me."
While he was in the hospital, members of the congregation of his church, Del View Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, began visiting him. The church really got involved, he said, and one parishioner was there probably 48 of those 52 days.
Things began to turn around for Hayes' health shortly after the end of that stay in October, and he continues to do dialysis three times a week.
Last February, Hayes was in church listening to the minister when the same man who visited him 48 days in the hospital gave him a letter. His wife opened it, read it and started crying and gave Hayes the letter, in which the writer said the Lord had convinced him to share one of his kidneys.
"He could live with one, the letter said, and I didn't have any to work with, and 'Why don't you take one of my kidneys?'"
Shortly after that another man offered Hayes a kidney and then still another. "When we started testing, it turned out the first offer was a perfect match."
The surgery is set for June, but Hayes is ready now, he smiled.
Renovations on his new eatery on Seventh Street were finished a month ago. The smaller section of the restaurant with a handful of tables and stools opened in early March.
His chef is Torry Anderson. Mackey said his job is to prepare the meat with a secret dry rub, marinate it overnight and smoke it.
"The meat falls off the bone," he laughed.
But Hayes has not forgotten the second chance he was given and to whom he owes thanks. "I have gone to church all my life and my mother raised us up in church as far as I can remember," he said.
"I heard about the power of prayer and I heard about God's amazing grace, and even though, when I was in church I was a rascal.
"After this incident, I quit running from God and realized he done made it plain in my life you're real and he blessed me to be with my family." he said. " I'll be a different person."
Hayes said that God also asked him to do something like his kidney donor had done for him, and that is to help troubled area youth. When he is able, Hayes and his wife plan to start a youth ministry above the restaurant for kids from broken homes.
"This is a second chance — a blessing in disguise — and the Lord is not finished with me yet," he said.
Hayes was born and raised in Wichita Falls. He and his wife Cathy have five grown children. Growing up, Hayes learned about restaurants from his grandmother Hilda Hall who ran the Hidden Village and Bluebird Inn on the east side of town.
After high school, Hayes moved to Oklahoma City but was in Wichita Falls for his mother and business part-time.
http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2011/mar/20/eatery-owner-ready-for-whats-to-come/