In July 2005, Jose Fendrick was riding on a bus along an interstate near Odessa, Mo., 25 miles east of Kansas City, while working in the music industry on tour with rappers Eminem and 50 Cent.
One minute, the manager and producer was watching the TV series “24.”
The next?
“All I remember is waking up on the side of the road with a lady standing over me, letting me know an ambulance had been called,” Fendrick said. “I was covered in blood.”
The bus had veered off the road to avoid colliding with a semitrailer before hitting a truck, according to news reports. The crash snapped Fendrick’s right arm, broke ribs and his right collarbone, and mangled his left ankle.
That began a dizzying, draining and often demoralizing journey that lasted for a decade and a half.
Fendrick began to develop blood clots. In 2016, he suffered a heart attack. He was in the beginning stages of congenital heart failure, a condition that impacted the functionality of his lungs. He was told he would need a triple organ transplant.
On June 25, 2020, he received a new heart and set of lungs at UC San Diego.
His kidney function tanked during the 11-plus-hour surgery, forcing him to go on dialysis for three weeks. The constant in and out of a breathing tube left one of his vocal cords permanently damaged.
“I sounded like a mixture between Mike Tyson and Michael Jackson,” said Fendrick, 49, who lives in Temecula and goes by Zeek. “The dialysis and all of that was the most grueling thing out of everything. That crushed me.
“I’ll tell people, if I could go through rehab from the accident 10 times in a row rather than the transplant, I’d take that in a heartbeat.”
When the 6,000 or so participants line up at Cabrillo National Monument on Sunday for America’s Finest City Half Marathon and 5K, it’s unfathomable to think anyone will have traveled a more pock-marked road than Fendrick.
He plans to walk the 5K. No one will leave feeling more proud and fulfilled.
“God and my faith got me through everything,” Fendrick said.
If you think his journey sounds horrifying and harrowing, dig into the details. The transplant happened during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning Fendrick was isolated and only saw his two children through a window.
The medications led to trembling and hallucinations. He had to drink a thickening agent with all liquids, including water.
“I’ve never had anxiety before, never,” Fendrick said. “I went through a deep, deep state of depression. They were feeding me through tubes in my neck. On top of that, you don’t know if your body will accept the organs.”
Fendrick had to sit on the side of a bed, counting to 50, before standing up. The move regulated his roller-coaster blood pressure.
“My body had gone through so much that it took me so much longer to rehab,” he said. “When I did cardio rehab, it felt like I’d run a marathon.”
So that 5K? The one he plans to walk? Yeah, it’s a big deal.
Walking is a win. Being alive is a win.
The win.
“This is just something I said I was going to do when I was in the hospital,” Fendrick said. “To show people, you’re not limited by what you’ve gone through. Despite all the things I’ve gone through, you can still go on with your life.
“So here I am.”
Fendrick registered for a 5K last fall, but had to step aside. Rainy, wet weather on race day could impact his fragile lungs. He also cannot be around living plants because spores affect his lungs.
What’s a little bit of a wait?
“It will be a sense of accomplishment, knowing that being in the hospital, it took me 5 minutes to go from a chair to the sink and back to brush my teeth,” he said. “This will show me how far I’ve come.”
Fendrick said he has not searched for information about his donor, but that could change.
“In the beginning, I was so focused on getting myself together and just living,” he said. “As time goes on, it’s something I might contact UCSD about to see if I can find out.”
First, there’s a 5K to tackle.
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