Shad Ireland was 10 years old in 1983 when his kidneys started failing.
Back then, the dialysis procedure was so bad that Ireland -- sick of the constant headache, the retching and the blood transfusions -- tried to commit suicide when he was 11 years old.
But things have changed since then, and Ireland, who is now 37, wants everyone to know it.
Ireland, a resident of Minnesota, stopped Monday at Fayetteville's Fresenius Medical Care, near Cape Fear Valley Medical Center, as part of a 4,000-mile bicycle ride across the United States to promote exercise, diabetes prevention and hope for patients with kidney failure.
Ireland began his tour in May in Los Angeles. He will end it on the Capitol steps in Washington, D.C., at the end of July.
At most of the stops, he receives dialysis treatment and talks to other patients. Several North Carolina cities were chosen as stops on his tour because of the state's rapidly increasing numbers of people with diabetes, a condition that can cause kidney failure.
According to the Southeastern Kidney Council, Fayetteville has more than 12,800 people receiving dialysis treatments.
Ireland, who has been on dialysis for most of the past 26 years, has experienced two failed kidney transplants since he was diagnosed with a kidney disease known as Type 1 MPGN.
He watched as the nine other children in his dialysis program died. By the age of 16, he was told he wouldn't live to see 25.
In 1993, after one of the failed kidney transplants, Ireland slipped into a coma. His parents were told to make funeral arrangements.
"I wanted to be a professional athlete," he says now. "I wanted to be a lawyer."
Those things weren't presented as possibilities for Ireland. It would be enough, he was told, if he simply lived.
But watching Sian Welch and Wendy Ingraham crawl to the finish in 1997's Iron Man triathlon changed his life.
The two women were competitors in the race. With only yards to go before the finish, both collapsed, their bodies nearly shutting down from exhaustion and lack of fuel.
But both women managed to crawl to the finish line -- something Ireland believed was a metaphor for what he had been through.
"At that moment, I made a promise to myself that I would compete in an Iron Man competition," he said. "I knew that if I could find what it was that drove them to the finish line, then I could do it, too."
Initially, however, Ireland wasn't prepared for how difficult his own challenge would be. His muscles had wasted, and he was severely anemic.
At first, he couldn't walk more than two minutes on a treadmill or even lift 5-pound weights.
It took six months, but finally Ireland was able to run for the first time since childhood. By 2004, he became the first dialysis patient to compete in an Iron Man triathlon.
Since then, Ireland has competed in 18 triathlons -- some of them Iron Man competitions. He hopes to compete in another one in Hawaii, he said.
Staff writer Jennifer Calhoun can be reached at calhounj@fayobserver.com or 486-3595. To see more of The Fayetteville Observer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.fayettevillenc.com/. Copyright (c) 2009, The Fayetteville Observer, N.C. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
Copyright (C) 2009, The Fayetteville Observer, N.C.