Kendal Ritchie, a 30-year-old Davenport native, is fighting for his life, in a coma with brain damage at a Las Vegas hospital.
His aunt, Shenetha Shipp, has set up a GoFundMe page, which has raised about $3,000 toward a $10,000 goal to help his family with mounting medical expenses.
“Without him working and with him being in and out of the hospital for the last couple of years, I'm sure Kendal and his mom have medical bills out of this world,” Shipp said Tuesday.
“I have no idea how much that would be, but I know it's probably several, several thousands of dollars.”
Her nephew has been battling Type 1 diabetes since the age of 10. Kendal’s father Louis Ritchie lives in Davenport (his parents split up when he was in college). He has two uncles in the Quad-Cities -- Adrian Ritchie, who is a former Moline High School Girls Basketball coach and current Moline schools employee, and Keylan Ritche, who works at Palmer Chiropractic College. (All of the Ritchie brothers played basketball for Alleman High School.)
Kendal has had relatives on both parents’ side of the family with diabetes, and a paternal great aunt died from it in her late 30s, Shenetha said Tuesday. Her mother’s niece also had childhood diabetes, and died from it at age 50. Shenetha’s mother has Type 2 diabetes, and is now 88, and has managed it.
Throughout his life, Kendal has shown incredible strength and determination, always working hard to achieve his goals and inspire those around him, the GoFundMe page says. “Even as his health challenges grew, he remained positive and hopeful, never letting his diagnosis define him.”
He graduated from Davenport West High School, class of 2014. He was a standout student and athlete in baseball and ROTC at West.
He went on to graduate from the University of Iowa with honors in 2018 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology, and worked for a few years in Iowa City after graduation, at Integrated DNA Technologies, Inc. in Coralville.
“Kendal is an overachiever,” his mom’s sister, Shenetha, said. “Kendal set high goals for himself and he always knew that he was going to go to college. He's always had this incredible love for rocks and soil and the earth. Hence the geology. He’s always loved and just been amazed with beautiful rocks and things of the earth.”
“He just always pushed himself really hard for the goals that he wanted to attain, and I think he sort of let nothing stop him or nothing get in his way,” Shipp said. “And even though he knew from early age that he was diabetic, he didn't let that deter him from any of those goals he wanted to set. He still graduated from high school. He still played sports while he was in high school. He had a really, really deep love for ROTC as well at Davenport West.”
He moved to Las Vegas about three years ago with his mom Thandra Ritchie, who built a new house there. Kendal started dialysis about a year ago and was put on a kidney transplant waiting list.
Shenetha and her four siblings all graduated from Rock Island High School; she lives in Memphis, Tenn.
Thandra Ritchie is now blind at 59, having lost her sight at 50.
“She is an inspiration to all who know her,” Shipp said. “She is a powerhouse. There's nothing she can't do. Only thing she can't do is drive a car. When she left the Quad Cities a couple of years ago, a few years ago to move to Las Vegas, her last job that she had was working for the center for the vision impaired, or I forget the name of it, but it's in Rock Island. And that's when she was working to help other people with vision impairments learn to move around their home.”
“She went back to St. Ambrose, got her master's degree, since she's been blind,” her sister said. “She's pretty amazing. And I think Kendal got a lot of his drive and determination from her. She is really unstoppable. She lets nothing get in her way. I mean, she was able to, like I said, relocate, move to Las Vegas, build a house.”
Kendal went from doing dialysis at a treatment facility to doing at-home dialysis, Shipp said.
“That is just challenging for someone in their late 20s,” she said. “It’s time consuming. I think he often, he noted a couple of times that whenever he would go to the treatment facility, there was like, nobody his age. It was always older people there that were getting the treatment. So I'm sure that made him feel, like, why am I having to do this?”
“He just was determined that he was going to lead a normal life, you know, regardless of his diet, his diabetes,” Shipp said.
Kendal developed an infection from the port in his arm for the in-treatment dialysis, and had surgery on it Jan. 30, she noted.
A couple days after his 30th birthday Feb. 1, in the middle of the night he was bleeding heavily from that surgical wound in his arm.
“That was kind of the beginning of everything that's transpired over the last few weeks,” Shipp said. Kendal had bypass surgery where they had to remove a vein from his leg to put in his arm to stop that bleeding. “That's kind of when everything started going downhill for him.”
He was forced to give up working to go on dialysis, and has faced countless hospital stays and treatments with courage. Despite his best efforts and the unwavering support of family, Kendal is now in the final stages of kidney failure, Shipp said.
On Feb. 12th, he suffered a devastating cardiac arrest at home that left him in a coma with significant brain damage.
“His brain damage is severe and it's massive,” Shipp said, noting Kendal would no longer be eligible for a kidney transplant.
He has a sister, Courtney, who works as a CNA in the Quad Cities. She said he’s going to be in a vegetative state for the rest of his life if he lives through this, Shipp said.
“Our family is doing everything we can to support Kendal during this unimaginable time,” the GoFundMe says. “The funds raised will help cover mounting medical bills, comfort care, travel, and related expenses as we stand by his side. Your prayers, kindness, and support mean the world to us as we navigate this difficult journey.”
To contribute, click HERE.
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