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Kidney disease claims life of St. Charles handyman

St. Charles man dies of kidney disease at age 32

At the risk of sounding corny, we referred to Andy Wade as "Handy Andy" around here on those occasions when he fixed something in our house that I could not - and that would be just about everything.

Andy rebuilt a part of our deck that was rotting, he fixed a mess I made out of the cement sealing of our fireplace box, and he fixed some hanging doors and light fixtures.

He was an honest fellow, even returning one of my screwdrivers he mistakenly took home. Little did he know I would have never missed that tool.

Andy was following the footsteps of his dad, Jim Wade, who operated his Wade Services handyman business for decades before recently retiring.

But Andy Wade wasn't healthy, and we all knew it. About 10 years ago his body started treating his kidneys as foreign objects that didn't belong there. Medically, they call it IgA Nephropathy, or Berger's Disease. By any name, it was a royal pain for Andy.

His father gave him one of his kidneys in 2007, and it worked for nearly two years, when he had to get another through a program at Loyola Hospital.

After that one shut down, he essentially functioned without kidneys for the past five years, undergoing strenuous three-hour dialysis sessions a few times a week.

His body finally gave up on that routine a couple of weeks ago when his mother, Sue, found him lying on the floor in his St. Charles apartment with his dog at his side.

"The only thing that takes the big sting out of this is that he was suffering, and now he is not suffering any more," Jim Wade said of his 32-year-old son's death.

"We're not sure if it was a buildup of the chemicals in his body, but he could barely sit through the treatments anymore and would get, like, panic attacks," Jim said. "He had restless legs and insomnia, but that got a little better when he got his support dog his last 10 days or so."

Andy knew what he was up against, and he didn't particularly like the outlook.

He often told his parents that with cancer you either get well or have a general idea of a due date with your maker. With the kidney dialysis situation, it would just go on forever.

"He hadn't worked in about a year because he just didn't have the strength," Jim said. "He tried to stay engaged with friends, playing pool at least once a week.

"I don't think he wanted to go through this anymore, but he didn't like the thought of the alternative either."

Because of being members of a service club with them, I always knew Andy's parents and his late grandfather, Al Wade, far better than I knew him.

But it's easy to spot a good handyman when you see one, or a son whose parents loved him beyond measure. Rest in peace, Handy Andy.

More escapes available:

Nic Miele of Batavia is adding to the growing trend of "escape rooms" as an interesting activity for those who enjoy solving mysteries and puzzles - in this case, to escape a room within 60 minutes.

Miele has opened iPanic Escape Rooms inside the Charlestowne Mall, about a month or so after Catherine Arne of Elgin brought an escape room concept to Batavia. So we suddenly have plenty of rooms to escape from.

"Escape rooms are popping up all over the country," Miele said. "We actually make them for other people as well. We were in New York, New Jersey and Michigan opening them for other people, and we came here and decided to open our own."

Miele feels there is plenty of room for more than one business offering the escape room experience. "I encourage anyone to get a group of people together to try it," he added.

Not sure what the hidden message is in all of this, but there's plenty of mysteries out there for us to solve now.

Will miss posters:

It's a bummer that the Batavia MainStreet organization can't stage the annual Art in Your Eye festival at the Riverwalk this year because of cost and volunteer concerns.

Aside from missing the opportunity to check out interesting works of art, there's something else I'll miss.

The posters promoting the Art in Your Eye festival were probably the most interesting we'd see each year.

I can't recall if some art students put those together or if city residents chose the promo art from various samples, but either way, they were always cool.

One-handed grocery task:

OK, we can outlaw this anytime now without a complaint from me. No one should be allowed to talk on a cellphone while they are unloading a grocery cart or paying for their groceries.

It forces them to do those tasks with one hand, thus taking one item at a time from a full cart, making for a long process - and much annoyance for those waiting in line.

If retailers are worried about how long the new chip cards inserted into terminal readers take to complete a transaction, why don't they make sure cellphone talkers don't cause even more delays?

Solution: If someone is talking on a phone, the clerk stops the checkout process until that person is off the phone. Hanging up is the best option after realizing everyone is watching.

Helping Haitians learn:

At various times, some of my relatives, friends or acquaintances have spent time in countries far less fortunate than ours to engage in various outreach projects.

Haiti is one of those places, especially since the devastating 2010 earthquake. So I have to plug efforts that keep helping those people.

The Hope for Haitians 5K Walk/Run for Education will be held at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, May 7, at the Kane County Government Center in Geneva. Registration starts at 7:30 a.m.

The registration fee of $25 ($30 on race day) goes toward educating children in the villages that this organization has rebuilt.

dheun@sbcglobal.net

  iPanic Escape Rooms recently opened inside the Charlestowne Mall in St. Charles. Rick West/rwest@dailyherald.com
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