PLEASANT VIEW — Rick Eilander has been told several times during his life that he might not live past the next morning.

The soon-to-be 60-year-old is still here, however, and he considers himself nothing short of a miracle.

For the past 25 years Eilander has been successfully treated with kidney dialysis for a condition known as chronic hydro nephritis, in which the kidneys swell due to the backup of urine. According to the Kidney Foundation, the average life expectancy of a person on dialysis is five to 10 years. On Friday, Pleasant View Dialysis Center threw him a party to celebrate his longevity and success.

“We’re having pizza, cookies and Tums,” Eilander said. “The Tums is because pizza is a No No when you’re going through dialysis, but that’s what I really wanted to have.”

Photo Galleries

His sickness all started when Eilander was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the age of 4, a disease that usually strikes men after the age of 70.

“We were in Arizona when Rick started getting sick and the doctor there told us to get him home as quickly as possible,” said his mother, Joylene Pettit. “When we got him home they took out his prostate gland. He had developed hypo nephritis and they told us he wouldn’t live very long.”

But the little boy beat the odds and continued to live. Doctors performed a urinary bypass in which a bag was placed outside of his body for the urine to flush out. There were complications and multiple surgeries. He missed numerous days of school and was home-schooled during his junior high years because he was too sick to attend. Doctors even told him he wouldn’t grow much over 4 feet 11 inches, but he grew to be 6-foot-4.

“He was the best little kid,” Pettit said. “He never complained. He just went on with his life as normally as he could and he was just a happy and positive little boy.”

Eilander said he remembers being sick as a toddler.

“I was just a little kid, so it was kind of an adventure for me,” he said. “Even though I was sick it was still an adventure.

”I had a lot of surgeries during my teenage years because I was in renal failure and at that point things could get scary. When I was 12 years old they told me I had six months to live and other times they told me I wouldn’t live to see the next morning. My dad ended up taking me to the University of Utah and they offered me a lot of different options and surgeries. I had a lot of things done between the age of 12 and 14. ”

Eilander ended up moving to Texas for a few years, where he became a minister, helping remodel churches and visiting people in hospitals, prison and rest homes.

“I wasn’t a preacher,” he said. “My ministry was more of a ministry of help. It helped me focus on other things and other people.”

Rick Eilander waits patiently for his dialysis treatment to get finished. His wife Penny and daughter Dani are his biggest support system through the last 25 years of treatment. . At the Dialysis Center in Pleasant View on July 3, 2015

He also became a role model for other dialysis patients.

“He’s been through a lot and he’s really been an example, especially for young dialysis patients,” said Eilander’s wife, Penny. “There were a few times where a patient would start and they would be so overwhelmed to the point to where they wanted to sign off and just stop, but Rick encouraged them to keep going.”

Eilander said he credits his longevity to a positive attitude, his faith in God, his sense of humor and the support of his family.

“I didn’t really ever focus on the sick part of it. My focus was more about how I could get better,” he said. “I wanted to grow up and get married and have a family. I wanted to go fishing. I just kept that positive attitude going and I really believe God continues to perform miracles.”

Eilander said it’s important to maintain a positive attitude, but it’s equally important to obtain as much knowledge as you can about your condition.

“Don’t go through it blindly. There are a lot of things they can do to help patients and caregivers,” he said. “It’s not a walk in the park. Your body gets slammed from the dialysis sometimes and I broke my hip a couple of months ago, which caused a setback, but you can have a normal life. There were times where I would go home after dialysis and mow the lawn or build a fort with my daughter. You just have to remember never to give up.”

...