From Navy Vet to National Advocate: Kidney Disease A Fight For Your Life

In this powerful episode of The NEXT BIG THING with Keith D. Terry, we sit down with Daniel Holmes, a former U.S. Navy Combat Search and Rescue Operator who turned his battle with rare kidney disease into a nationwide advocacy mission.

Diagnosed with Membranous Nephropathy, a life-threatening and incurable kidney disease, Daniel was told he had limited time to live. But instead of accepting defeat, he and his wife launched a tactical fight for survival—educating themselves, confronting medical obstacles, and ultimately uncovering the truth about toxic exposure and veterans’ health.

Daniel’s story isn’t just about survival. It’s about systemic change, policy advocacy, and empowering others who feel unseen in the healthcare system.

🎧 Listen to learn:

• The emotional and medical journey of battling rare kidney disease
• The impact of the PACT Act and VA policy reform
• Why Daniel speaks before Congress, the FDA, and the NIH
• How veterans can fight for their rights—and win

💡 If you care about health equity, veteran support, and personal resilience, this episode will inspire and inform.

📲 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or iHeartRadio and follow me on my YouTube channel @keithdterry for more real conversations that spark change.

Chapters

• 0:14 Introduction to Kidney Disease Crisis
• 6:52 Meeting Daniel Holmes: Navy Veteran
• 14:38 Daniel's Military Journey
• 28:07 The USS George Washington Fire
• 44:14 Life-Changing Diagnosis in 2020
• 1:00:32 Finding Support Through NefCure
• 1:04:27 Discovering the Military Toxic Exposure Link
• 1:13:49 Battling the VA Healthcare System
• 1:19:38 Creating the Enlisted Kidney Foundation

Transcript

Keith D. Terry: 0:00

Welcome to the podcast the Next Big Thing. I'm your host, keith D Terry, a consultant, a coach and a serial entrepreneur. The mission here is to teach, inspire and to motivate Today's episode. I'm particularly excited about it because of its importance. We're going to be talking about kidney disease.

Keith D. Terry: 0:20

Kidney disease is one of the most overlooked public health crises in America and, I would even say, the world. It affects an estimated 37 million people in this country. But here's the kicker Nine out of 10 of them don't even know that they have an issue. And when they find out that they have an issue, it's often too late. The kidneys, those two fist-sized powerhouses that filter our blood, regulate critical function like blood pressure and bone health, can quietly fail without warning. Now the history of kidney disease shifts to dialysis. The life-extending treatment for kidney failure only became available check this out 1970. The first successful kidney transplant wasn't until 1954. And even today, kidney care continues to lag behind other major diseases in innovation, funding and public awareness. Despite the massive impact, it just doesn't get the attention it deserves. Now then there's the harsh reality of organ donation. Right now, over 90,000 people in the United States are waiting for a kidney transplant, but only 25,000 to 30,000, get one each year. This means that thousands of people die and suffer, and if you're a person of color, the odds are even worse due to systemic disparities in health access and donor matching.

Keith D. Terry: 1:50

Now let's turn our attention to veterans, those who put their lives on the line for our freedom. Many of them, like our guest today, are dealing with the fallout from toxic exposure during their service. The exposure can trigger chronic illness, including rare and deadly kidney disease, and, until recently, the system the VA routinely denied claims connecting the illness to their military service. This brings us to our conversation today. You're about to meet Daniel Holmes. He's a Navy combat search and rescue veteran who took his rare kidney disease diagnosis and turned it into a national movement. Now let me spend a few moments introducing Daniel to you, because I'm excited. I was impressed when I met him and I'm more impressed as I've gotten to know him and his background. A couple of things, daniel. Like I said, daniel Holmes is a former combat search and rescue operator, a NEFCURE 2024 Impact Award recipient and one of the nation's most influential kidney disease advocates, and we're going to talk about how that happened Now.

Keith D. Terry: 2:56

It all started in April 2020 when Dan was diagnosed with membranous nephropathy, a rare and incurable kidney disease. Doctors gave him little hope, but surrender was not in this man's DNA. As he fought for his own survival, dan uncovered another injustice His disease was linked to toxic exposure during his military service. Yet the VA repeatedly denied his claims. Daniel took his fight to the highest levels before the FDA. Check this out the FDA, the NIH, the National Board of Nephrology, congress advocating for policy changes in kidney disease. His journey has been marked by a journey no-transcript. My friend.

Daniel Holmes : 4:12

Man. Let me start. Thank you, keith, for having me. Brother, I'm doing good, man, I'm doing good Today. I feel great. I feel great.

Keith D. Terry: 4:18

Thanks for asking that's good, so walk us through the moment when you got your diagnosis. What went through your mind and what did you say to yourself?

Daniel Holmes : 4:28

Well, I don't think we ever really prepare ourselves to mentally accept some news like that or a terminal diagnosis. You know, when I said it to myself it was the height of COVID, Right. So when I got this diagnosis, my family couldn't necessarily be there with me. When I got this diagnosis, my family couldn't necessarily be there with me. So I had to process this information myself and as I process that information I'm thinking where's the medicine? Man, you know what I mean. Like, hey, you got the flu, let's get rid of it. You got this, let's take the medication that starts the treatment program and kind of get rid of this. They're like, oh, you got some kidney disease.

Daniel Holmes : 5:03

So it was a process. I didn't know. I was undereducated. I was significantly undereducated about kidney disease. Man, I had never my grandmother had dealt with some kidney issues growing up, was on dialysis for a long time and ultimately ended up passing away. But you know, I never really thought anything about it, Just kind of thought well, you know, maybe she drank a lot or, you know, maybe just people get sick, I'm not sure. But I've always been a healthy guy, you know what I mean, Always been tip top shape. So this was something new to me something that I had to really figure out how to process.

Keith D. Terry: 5:37

Well, people don't know this, but when I first I met Daniel at the 2025 NIF cure conference and you know he's not a little man for listening public and he walked up and he's this perfect looking specimen and you know then you get to know his story and what he's fighting for. It's quite impressive. But before we get to some of the deeper stuff, where do you come from? Help folks to get to know you a little bit. Where are you from, daniel?

Daniel Holmes : 6:03

Awesome, I appreciate that question, man. I'm originally from Baltimore, maryland, man. I grew up in Baltimore. I grew up in Columbia, specifically in an area called Howard County. Okay, so I was raised there, great education system. You know, both mom and dad worked for the Army at the time. You know, mom was at the Pentagon, dad was doing his thing in the army and so grew up in Baltimore and then went to high school in Baltimore and then ended up leaving for the Navy Saying hi to Uncle Sam.

Keith D. Terry: 6:34

Now tell us a little bit about your military service. Now you were in how long before all of this kind of started?

Daniel Holmes : 6:41

Yeah, man, this thing was crazy. So, again, my military service. Let me just put that out there, that my military service I didn't really connect anything with kidneys at the time Right. So joined the military. Healthy guy, went through the military, got out of the military in 2008. Again, what I felt healthy guy, right, joined the Navy as an AW, which is an aviation warfare system operator. That job back in the Cold War days used to hunt submarines from aircraft, helicopters and old school P3s. And they got some cool planes out now, the Poseidons that I really wanted to be able to fly in. But my time expired man and life moves on.

Daniel Holmes : 7:23

Took that path and then, you know, went through all the training. Man, it's about a two-year pipeline of training. You go through some pretty difficult things Air crew school, rescue, swimmer school, some evasion school like a fake POW camp that they call SEER school. Okay, there's a lot of different tactics, schools and platforms, learning the platforms that you're going to be on, that you'll be working with and working on learning all of those. So it's about a two year pipeline.

Daniel Holmes : 7:54

At the time that I joined it was about a two year pipeline, but I joined the Navy because I wanted to be a pilot in the Air Force, ok. So I was like I was like man, what I want to do my whole life? Man, I grew up loving jets, loving planes. It's just been my thing as a, as a passion. I just loved it. I love the engineering of them, I thought they were super cool, right.

Daniel Holmes : 8:15

And so when I reached the point in my life where I was like, look, we're going to go, I'm going to go in the military, okay, I wasn't a military oriented person. Growing up, mom and dad were in the military, grandfather served in Marine Corps. I wasn't really like you would think he was just slated for the military, but at that point, maybe subconsciously, that was happening, right. But for me it was like dad's not home as often, mom's not home as often. I don't want to do that to my family, man, I don't want to go to the military and just never be home.

Daniel Holmes : 8:46

But then I had this passion in fighter jets and so I went to the recruiter's office in the Air Force and they were like well, you know, in order to go to be an officer, in order to fly jets, you got to be an officer, which requires a bachelor's degree. And for me, school for me had expired. I was at the point where I was. You know, I'm 18, 19 years old, you know what I'm saying. I'm in that age where I'm like man, I'm done school, I've been in school my whole life. I want to get after it and start experiencing what this planet has to offer.

Daniel Holmes : 9:25

And that's kind of where I went, man, and joined the Navy. Well, the Air Force was like listen, we don't have a program that you can join to fly planes, but the Navy has an enlisted air crew program that allows people to fly in planes and in helicopters and stuff. You should go down the hall and check them out. And I was like all right, so I go down the hall, my Air Force dude told me come over here and talk to you about some you know. And there was like so they show me this video at the recruiting office, man, and at the time I had no clue, but now, looking back on it, I laugh bro. I laugh because they show me this video about different jobs, right, like jobs that you can do in the Navy and all this different stuff. And they were trying to push, they're trying to get some more air crewmen in the navy and raise those numbers up, so they show me this video.

Daniel Holmes : 10:07

It's a coast guard video of a coast guard rescue swimmer right some guy leaning outside of a helicopter lowering the swimmer down into the water and he was like man, the guy in the helicopter. Man, that's going to be your job. You're going to be like the winch operator dude that just kind of holds the cord for the guys that go in the water, gotcha, but you get to fly every day. It's a great job, you'll have a great time. And I was like man, sign me up. That sounds cool. He goes and we give you $10,000.

Keith D. Terry: 10:39

Okay, so you're like money too, right?

Daniel Holmes : 10:41

Right Money talks. Where do I sign, man? Not knowing that I was joining one of the most difficult US military special operations group in the world, the best rescue swimmers on the planet, I got to say because I'm Navy or come from the Navy, the Navy. So I didn't understand that. I didn't really understand what I was getting myself into. I had no preparation, I didn't know I was. I have to go and run forever and swim forever and get. I think it was like bootcamp. That's all I was really worried about. I was like after that.

Keith D. Terry: 11:15

But you know what I'm getting from this and I and and I'm not going to jump forward is you had a dream, you had a passion and and you chased it and you created opportunity. That's kind of how I see, which I love, so keep going so long story short.

Daniel Holmes : 11:32

It was a pipeline. I joined the Navy, got really excited, went through the training and it's important to understand that when you go through this kind of physical training, I was in a point in my life where I didn't have a whole lot to rely on. I didn't have a whole lot to fall back on. At the time I was, you know, I was out of high school that transition of you're out of high school. I was dabbling in some college classes, didn't really find any passion there and didn't really know where I wanted to take my life, you know. But the Navy definitely helped me figure that out. Man and being part of a community like this is a blessing all in itself.

Keith D. Terry: 12:12

Okay, okay, and so we fast forward. You get out of the Navy in 08 and 2012, my wife, my son and a friend of ours.

Daniel Holmes : 12:31

We go back on the ship that I was on. The USS George Washington was making its way back to Norfolk Virginia from Yokosuka, japan, and that's important because I was on the home port change when the George Washington went from Norfolk Virginia to Yokosuka Japan. Okay, so it was on its way home. I had some friends still on the ship and you know a lot of people that I was on the ship with kind of understand, understood kind of what we went through on that on that ship and it was cool.

Keith D. Terry: 13:06

Now is your wife military.

Daniel Holmes : 13:08

My wife is a military veteran. We met, okay, on the ship. We call it the G, it's the G dub to us. Right, aka the love boat, aka CVN 73. Right, so yes, met my wife on the ship, um, man, and we've been together ever since. I met her in 2000. Late 2005. Ok, met her late 2005,. Man, and we're still together 20 years later. Man Been married, 18.

Keith D. Terry: 13:39

Gotcha.

Daniel Holmes : 13:39

So you come back in 2012 and you find you come back in 2012 and you find, yeah, so 2012 ship pulls back in, my buddy reaches out and we're like man, it would be great experience to show my son, you know, who was about six years old at the time let's take him back on the ship, man, like where mom and dad started everything you know. Let's show you, kind of, where we, where this journey began. Yes, and so we did that, man, we were walking the halls of the ship and, mind you, the last time I was on that ship it was on fire, so I broke down. We were walking. Something, just something snatched my soul out my body, man, when we were walking through that ship and I remember walking through the hangar bay and looking at the hatch that we had to go down to initiate a rescue. It was crazy, man, it was just crazy. And after that experience, I went home, went back to our friend's house and she was already. She was military, she had worked with my wife in the same division on the same ship and she was like I think you have PTSD, man, and I'm like what she's like yo, you got PTSD bad, like something.

Daniel Holmes : 14:46

Something happened to you on that ship today and I was like I feel it. I do, I could see that and I didn't understand. I didn't understand what was happening to me. I didn't know, you know, I was just like I don't know. It's a situation, it kind of happened. I didn't really talk much about it, I didn't tell a lot of people about the situation. It was just a thing that kind of happened. Oh, fast forward to 2020. I blow up like the michelin man, like the nutty professor, and I gained like 40 you know 40 pounds overnight and I go from like 220 to like almost 300 pounds, like all overnight. We go, we go to the or to the urgent care and I'm like yo, what's going on with me? And they're like man, you got some you're feeling funny too.

Keith D. Terry: 15:26

I was feeling so yeah, I am awake.

Daniel Holmes : 15:30

Awake, I mean, just a regular morning. This is out of nowhere. I just wake up and I'm like I got some flank pain, I got some edema, I think, going on. I'm not feeling too well, blood pressure is not doing so, but I got something going on in my kidneys. Now that's important for me to stop you right there and let you know that I've had some kidney stones since I was getting out of the Navy. I've had some kidney stones, but they've always been attributed to oh, you're drinking too much whey protein or you know, it's too small to really biopsy the stone and kind of figure out exactly what it is you know. So I just like I'm going to stop drinking this whey protein and, you know, stop getting kidney. Kidney stone was always what I thought, man, and in 2020, man changed my life, man, and what I thought was maybe possibly another kidney stone turned out to be a terminal diagnosis and it turned out to tell you know the long run. It told me you got 12 months to live with this thing, man.

Daniel Holmes : 16:34

That's about how long it's going to be.

Daniel Holmes : 16:35

That's what was told to you Yep, wow, wow so all in all, the first question you asked me was about my diagnosis and how it was receiving that information at that time. So at that time it was just. It was really hard for me to process all of that the who, the what, the when, the why's, all that stuff came later. I didn't know any of that. I just thought maybe I had a kidney stone and we're going to get there, we're going to take some medicine, right, we're going to make the veins a little wider and I'll pee this thing out or not. But it wasn't a stone.

Keith D. Terry: 17:09

And so you received this information, your wife received this information. You guys are fighters, troopers, you know. If you can't remember your first thought and your process, just take us through kind of that wake up period, right, the period where, of course, you're fighting to survive. Then is there some time between you. Know, I want to this, these first questions, I want to you know, talk about your community, your wife, your kids, the people that you surrounded yourself with. What did you do to push back, fight back? I mean, it's one thing to accept a critical diagnosis of 12 months, but that's been years ago. Daniel and man, I applaud you for the fight. So what was your process there?

Daniel Holmes : 17:59

So it was built and ingrained into my every being that quitting is not an option when you're going through hard military training or you're doing any kind of hard, strenuous event on your body. It builds resilience and it builds strength. And if you can live your life by the motto of I will never quit, then you have the confidence to take on whatever comes across in your path. So, for me, kidney disease came across my path. You know, first it was PTSD that came across my path and then it was kidney disease, oh, and then it was like man, how do I deal with both of these? And then it was the PTSD that follows from kidney disease treatments and all the malpractice and all the things that went wrong.

Daniel Holmes : 18:49

So biggest thing for me that really stood up is when I had to look my family in the eye and when the doctors were telling me hey, man, you're going to have to make a phone call to your family and let them know, like you're probably not going to make it out of here, man, like this is bad, you know.

Daniel Holmes : 19:08

So having that conversation right in your head in the hospital, not knowing what's going on, I couldn't even pronounce membranous nephropathy right, let alone nephrotic syndrome. So I was like what is happening to me? But we looked at my wife, man, and we looked at each other and we were just like, yeah, we can beat this. I don't care what it is, you've been through it, we've been through it. You know we beat all the odds. You know what I mean Like through our both of our lives and how we've grown up and how we've raised our son. Is is beating odds and changing the narrative, you know, and letting people know that it's OK to say no when everybody else say yeah, because you got your own personal reasons of saying no. So when the doctor told me that I had a terminal disease and I wasn't getting out of the hospital, I'm not accepting that. I need a new doctor.

Keith D. Terry: 20:01

OK.

Daniel Holmes : 20:02

You see what I'm saying? Like to me it was. It was open to shut, ok, so my disease is something that you're not familiar with. Peace, let me get somebody that is. And that was. That was the start, that was the. I'm not just going to lay down here and just take this. This is crazy. I've been through way too much.

Keith D. Terry: 20:20

You know what I mean, so, and you, know I mean so and you know what's interesting about all that is. You know a lot of people would have just laid down on that diagnosis, but you guys fought back. And let's stay on family for a moment. There's something special that went on between you and your wife both military people, you know love your life. You're it, your queen, you're a king, you know. You know, talk a little bit about the part of community and family that kept you going.

Daniel Holmes : 20:55

Man, it's the only thing that kept me going. Right, I lean on the military heavily and what my training has got me to, but that only lasts for so long. Right, that's not going to pick you up out of the trenches, man. You need somebody by your side that can recognize when you're in the trenches and can throw you that lifeline to help you get up out of the trenches. Right, that's what I didn't know. I needed that. I already have. I had it. I found it. I married her right, so she was strong and resilient. I mean, the lady I married man, was launching fighter jets off a flight deck of an aircraft carrier, like things you see in Top Gun. Right, right, I met her. Her face was covered in a jet exhaust fumes and black soot. I knew she was ride or die for me. I got you.

Daniel Holmes : 21:46

From the jump and you know, when you take those oaths in marriage, like in sickness and in health, you know some people take that stuff in vain and say that stuff pretty easily, not really realizing what you're really signing up for Right? So in sickness and in health, there you go, you know my wife, my family has been there for me.

Daniel Holmes : 22:07

Now, being from Baltimore, I have a spread out family. After joining the military, we had came back to Maryland for a little while, came back to the DMV area for a little while, built our resumes up in that area and then, ultimately, we moved down to Florida about six years ago. And then, ultimately, we moved down to Florida about six years ago 2018, 2019 timeframe. We moved down in Florida. It's something we love. We're Navy people, we need to be by the beach. It's just something that is in our soul Warm weather baby, it's Florida weather man.

Daniel Holmes : 22:38

So why wait till we super old and retired, right Right, let's just get down there and have fun and live life the best way we can. So we did. I'm so glad, in so many different ways, that we made that decision to come down here.

Keith D. Terry: 22:51

So you get this diagnosis, you fire your doctor, and because he didn't have a fight, well, you know, we could say it for a number of things. One, he wasn't familiar with the disease. He didn't have a let's save you attitude. A disease, he didn't have a let's save you attitude. What was the next thing that went through? Because what I'm trying to do is build this. You know how you get from hearing that to this national advocacy champion that you are.

Daniel Holmes : 23:13

So there's 300,000 nephrologists in the United States. Okay, 300,000. How many do you think specialize in rare kidney disease?

Keith D. Terry: 23:23

That's a great question. I'd say 10% maybe 300.

Daniel Holmes : 23:26

There's 300 professionals in the United States that deal with rare kidney disease. Let me tell you something 300, right we were. I was at a Nefcare patient event in New York City last weekend and there was 300 people in that room. So can you imagine that room holding every rare disease nephrologist? No, in the United States.

Keith D. Terry: 23:54

No, I can't.

Daniel Holmes : 23:54

And all of them have to treat every single patient that has a rare kidney disease.

Keith D. Terry: 24:00

And there are 341 million people in this country. That is an insane number 300 for 340. I mean, I don't know the percentage of people that have rare kidney disease, but Jesus Okay.

Daniel Holmes : 24:13

Nine. One in nine, well, one in three have CKD. One in nine have a rare kidney disease. They don't even know it. They don't even know it. So that started my journey in education. When my doctor came in and said I don't know what to do. We know that you're swelling up, we know that you're gaining weight. Mind you, they put me on an IV drip the whole time in the hospital. So I'm just continuously gaining more weight, right? Nobody really knew or understood what was happening to me. So that started the journey of decline.

Daniel Holmes : 24:50

My health actually declined when I went to the hospital, not improved. You would expect it to be improved when you get assigned a medical team, you get admitted, you got a nephrology care, all these things that are supposed to be helping. Yeah, that actually made my health worse. And the reason it made my health worse was the lack of knowledge in this space, the lack of knowledge in the kidney, the rare kidney disease space in the world of nephrology education. Right, when you go to school to be a nephrologist, nephrotic syndrome is like at the bottom corner of the page. You know what I mean. So if you skip I know college, you skip school. That day. You didn't learn nephrotic syndrome.

Daniel Holmes : 25:35

You don't learn anything about it.

Keith D. Terry: 25:37

And so you find this out. And how did you find your specialist?

Daniel Holmes : 25:42

It was a journey. My treatment has been through the VA, so it's not as easy for me to be able to just say, okay, hey, I'm going to fire this doctor and I'm going to call my insurance and go to another doctor, right? The VA has got a whole different process of things, man, and they don't like to step around that process for nobody, ok. So I fought and I fought and I fought to get out of the VA into what they call community care. I had to prove that my medical team currently could not handle the care that I was currently in.

Daniel Holmes : 26:22

I had to prove it Okay, because they're not going to pay for you to go see a doctor outside of the VA if the VA doctors are completely doing their job correctly, right?

Daniel Holmes : 26:34

Yes, yes More cost's more cost-effective to leave you inside the system than to pay for somebody outside the system. So a lot of this really started taking place after I had gotten my biopsy. I was in in 2020, I was in the hospital for a little over a year, in and out at times and those kinds of things, but really trying to figure out what was going on, I didn't walk into the hospital and go hey, you have membranous nephropathy. No, nobody knows that. Right, don't walk in the hospital. You got kidney disease? No, we walked in the hospital. They thought I had a block, a fully blocked kidney vein Right that was being blocked by a stone. That's probably what they thought so immediately was X-ray CAT scan what's inside his kidney, right? All those kind of things. Oh, by the way, he might have covid. This might be covid related because, at the time everybody had covid.

Daniel Holmes : 27:19

You remember you would sneeze and they'd be like you got covid. So if you just you got covid. So for me to walk in there with a full-blown edema, pitting edema, stage four edema, and just walk in there like the pillsbury dough boy you know what I mean and be like I don't know what's happening to me, they're like, well, we ain't have, well, you might have COVID. We got to put you in quarantine. We are quarantined for a while and see what happened. We'll know where you got this from. So that's kind of how I got treated. Right, it was like this COVID weird, like we don't know what. We didn't know what COVID did to people in the first place people in the first place, gotcha. So that started the path of let's figure out what's going on with you. Let's take a COVID test.

Daniel Holmes : 27:58

Remember they stuck that, that that tip all the way up in your brain and you know, so I had to go through all of those misdiagnoses that weren't you know the testing to figure out what it was. Ultimately, I had gotten a nephrology team who who I was knowledgeable enough to say, I think we need a poke of the kidney. We got to take a piece of this kidney and let's go look at a biopsy done and kind of go and let's see what's going on. At this point they had found the protein in my urine, so I was spilling 12,000 milligrams of protein. Wow.

Keith D. Terry: 28:34

That's 12 grams, that's 12 grams of protein per day in your pee. That's a lot. That's a lot.

Daniel Holmes : 28:41

So that's a lot. If you spill 30 milligrams 30 milligrams on a regular day your nephrologist is going to say hey, man, we need to do some testing. I was spilling 20 or 12,000. So we did a biopsy. Biopsy came back confirmed membranous nephropathy. At the time, in 2020, the education level of membranous nephropathy wasn't nowhere near where it is today. They were making some progress, though. They were making some headway. There were some people trying to make some noise about it in some, you know, some headway. There were some people trying to make some noise about it, but not a lot. Okay, not a lot. And what I really needed to know is I had to take control of my own knowledge of this disease Once I started realizing that the medical teams around me aren't going to get it.

Keith D. Terry: 29:29

Now, daniel, how long did it take you to get there? Because you know, you know, that was that's one of my questions is, you know, your mindset shifted and allowed you to start thinking less like a patient and start thinking like a disruptor and an advocate.

Daniel Holmes : 29:45

It kind of fell itself all in all that, all that kind of all in the same time frame. It kind of felt for me because I was in the hospital, right. So I'm in the hospital, I got the gown butts out in the back and I'm just trying to figure out. All I have is a phone and a charger. I don't even have my wife next to me, you're right. So we're trying to bounce ideas and we're Googling and I'm using Dr Google man, you know what I mean Like trying to figure out what is nephrotic syndrome. Nobody really mentioned anything to me about membranous nephropathy until after my biopsy had been read and they told me that I had membranous nephropathy secondary, but they didn't know which was means it's caused by something, but they had no clue it was caused by.

Daniel Holmes : 30:27

So they ran me through the whole gauntlet of the cancer and the lupus and the diabetes and you know they run you through the gauntlet of everything trying to figure out what that cause is.

Keith D. Terry: 30:36

Now were they accusing you of bad life choices, like they've done other folks with kidney disease? Like you, eat too much fast food, drug use, anything like that.

Daniel Holmes : 30:45

Not specifically for me, because I was experiencing symptoms that people couldn't put all together. They don't understand why my body was storing water, especially after they gave me IV Lasix. You know what I mean. When you get in Lasix IV, your water should just come off. Instead, it stayed on and I just got bigger Jesus.

Daniel Holmes : 31:08

So they were like, and to the point where organs start to fail. I mean, you can't hold that much fluid on your heart and your lungs and your liver, right? You just can't hold that. Your body's not designed to do all that. So I was in the process of they were killing me, man. Yes, they didn't even know it. I didn't know it, but I felt it. And that started the journey. I got to figure out what the heck is happening to me, what is going on with me if these guys don't know? Lord, yeah, nobody's gonna know, and I gotta figure this out.

Daniel Holmes : 31:41

So that's when the research started. That's when the you know my wife kept telling baby, you gotta be your best, your own best advocate. Man, I would fall asleep on the phone on facetime just so, because I didn't know when the doctor was coming in next. And she was like I got to be there for this because they were pumping me full of medications. Man, you're not in the same mindset. I was in excruciating pain. Ok, organs are failing. I mean, things start to happen to your body where you're just not 100 percent here and with it. Does that make sense? It does. And then she was able to be that voice when I didn't have one and sat there on the phone when the doctor walked in and be like hey, hey, doc, what's going on? I need to know his numbers, what's going on with this? What's his blood pressure, what's the status? You know what?

Daniel Holmes : 32:40

Because the doctors kept leaving like, oh, I got to go reach out to somebody else and see if I can figure out some answers, and then it would come back in to check on me. We're expecting answers, right, and they're just more questions, right. And when they come back in with just more questions, I'm like so when did you?

Keith D. Terry: 32:45

was it okay? I love the story. Did Nefcure come into the picture yet?

Daniel Holmes : 32:52

Yeah, so I'm laying in the hospital bed and I'm on Facebook it's a Thursday night and I'm just scrolling Right and I felt like I'm scrolling for my life, Like this is the last score. This is the last scroll that I'm going to do is how I felt, man, when you get a terminal diagnosis and they're telling you, bro, you got less than a year. Usually you expire before that, Right. And then you're all the things that go in your head like man, I'm not going to see my son graduate high school, I'm not going to see him get married. I'm not like all those things start happening At all, all of that.

Daniel Holmes : 33:28

So you're dealing with all the mental anguish, right of this. Now you're dealing with the mental and physical abuse that you're getting from the medical teams that are trying to treat you. That's not working. The only thing I could do was empower myself and become an empowered patient. And how do I do that? I don't know. There's no roadmap.

Daniel Holmes : 33:44

So I get on the phone and I'm like, all right, what agencies handle nephrotic syndrome? Because that's what I, that's all. That's what they told me at the time. You have nephrotic syndrome. So I was like, okay, nephrotic syndrome, nephrotic syndrome. And I'm just doing searches and I stumbled across a patient support group for patients with nephrotic syndrome sponsored by Nefcure International, which is a nonprofit organization designed. Their entire mission is trying to find a cure for people and patients that have rare protein spilling kidney diseases, like myself. So I hopped in there. Man, it's eight o'clock at night Again. I got the gown on right. I got the little ties in the back. I have no clue what I'm about to walk into. You're a Zoom guy, right? You used to hold a lot of Zooms.

Daniel Holmes : 34:29

So, I don't know what I'm about to walk into. I'm going to click this link at eight o'clock and just see what happens and see who's in here. But I had hope, because if they have this Facebook group created, people are going to join it. That means there's other people in the world that have the thing I have. I got questions, my doctors got questions. I was filling up notebooks with the doctor's questions. I had my notebook with my questions. I had my cell phone with my wife's questions. We had all these questions. So I'm like I'm a happiness and I'm about to unload, and that was my introduction to Nefcare man. It was. I met some amazing people that provided me some support that I will be forever thankful for. I don't even know how to put into words the amount of gratitude that I have for those people.

Keith D. Terry: 35:18

Yeah, I'm with you because, for those folks that are listening to the sound of my voice, very powerful organization, nefcure, and, as Daniel said, they are a nonprofit in the fight for kidney care, and this is where I met Daniel. And so, daniel, my next question is when you got connected to Nefcure? Is that when the question started to get answered at an accelerated pace?

Daniel Holmes : 35:41

Did it? Did I mean, I had questions that drove more questions and when I reached a roadblock that people didn't have answers, I had to go around them.

Keith D. Terry: 35:50

Gotcha.

Daniel Holmes : 35:51

And even at some point you only reach people only have so much knowledge. What Nefcure really helped me to do was try and find that specialist. Hey, you're not the only one with this disease. We have a network of doctors that we work with that are specialists.

Keith D. Terry: 36:07

And I said.

Daniel Holmes : 36:09

But here's my trials and tribulations. I can't just pick up the phone and call your specialist and get an appointment because I don't have insurance. All I have is VA health care. And let me tell you what I went through just trying to get out of the VA health care system. Right, and I still battle that. So it was like, ok, how is this going to work? This is how it worked. Is Miracles happen, man?

Daniel Holmes : 36:30

For a reason, I attended a patient summit put on by Nefcure and when I was healthy enough to be able to show up in person, things just lined up the way perfectly, man, they held it in Orlando. It's an hour from my house. How random. Right, I'm in Orlando, a medical facility. I'm like, okay, that's random. At that patient summit they had some specialists talk and give some speeches and there was a doctor on there I'll give him a shout out Dr Joshi. Man, I love you. He is a nephrologist, board certified nephrologist and nutritionist and I was like, ok, so he was talking about diet and things. He's a vegetarian, a vegan.

Daniel Holmes : 37:10

Now, listen, one of the things I haven't shared with you is I grew up in the vegetarian diet household. I didn't necessarily always partake when I was, you know, age enough to go to school and eat a burger? I did. But the household we didn't have meat in the house. It just it was just how we grew up. We just it wasn't. It just wasn't something that we did. So I was a little rebellious. I wasn't a survivor in that house. I wasn't. Let me tell you something rebellious.

Daniel Holmes : 37:35

I wasn't a survivor in that house, I wasn't. Listen, let me tell you something. Anyway, look, hey, look, it's great. It is a healthy. It's a healthy food, food regimen. If that's something that you can do, I recommend it to people all the time. Dude, you got the strength. I just haven't gotten there yet.

Keith D. Terry: 37:48

Right, I'm shifting in that direction. Now I'm eating less meat because, you're absolutely right, it is a very healthy but.

Daniel Holmes : 37:55

But but keep going, cause I want to get this doctor and he gave a wonderful speech and I just started interrupting his and I apologize, dr Joshi, for watching this. I apologize, but I was interrupting his speech because I had questions. Every time he would say so I'm like I'll raise my hand and they would give me the microphone. I'd be like, dr Joe, what happens when this happens? Or this has happened to me, and they're telling me that da-da-da-da-da. And he was like oh my God, why are they putting you through this and how are they right? I'm like how do they get the water off? And they're giving me these medications and this albumin and there's terms I didn't know.

Daniel Holmes : 38:30

Anyway, he took me aside after his speech, man, and he was, you know, he answered a lot of the questions that I had and he's a specialist in nephrotic syndrome. He educates himself on it, he stays up with all the, all the current things. There's five clinical trials that are going on that he's aware of. And he tells me, dan, moving from NYU and I'm moving in October to Orlando, florida, and I've accepted a position at the Orlando VA hospital what God, I'm working, yeah, what, okay, okay. So I was like okay, things happen for a reason, man, they do.

Daniel Holmes : 39:13

They just happen for a reason man, so I took his contact information down Right.

Keith D. Terry: 39:17

Right.

Daniel Holmes : 39:18

And he probably just left. You know he left the conference and went about his business, moved here. Like a year later or so, like that October, he moved in. I texted him Cause I don't forget, I'm not going to forget, I wrote it down. He might forget me, but I texted him and I was, you know, had a, had a great conversation with him.

Keith D. Terry: 39:34

I'm not very serious that he forgot you, but you know.

Daniel Holmes : 39:37

I doubt he. Yeah, he's, you know, he, he. I'm not a good person to forget, but anyway.

Keith D. Terry: 39:42

Well, you know, I'm curious how did you go about finding out that the cause of it was from toxic issues when you serve, as in the military?

Daniel Holmes : 39:57

Gotcha, that's, that's all right. So. So I told you about I had some struggles trying to get out of the VA system and I had to get into some community care. And my first bout with community care was with a local here in the space coast of Florida, a local nephrology group, and built a really good relationship with that doctor who decided I'm going to take this on, I've done some research on nephrotic syndrome. I'm not a specialist but I will do as much as I can for you, and he was knowledgeable in that space. So he was like let's start you on some of the cyclosporine cyclophosphamide, let's do some of these other treatment options that were kind of off label.

Daniel Holmes : 40:29

Because when you get through community care, the VA basically gives you an authorization for a certain amount of time for whatever that doctor recommends. So that doctor's got to send you to somewhere else, they approve it. They got to write you a script, they approve it, right. So your approval is good for that certain amount of time for the VA, so whatever that doctor wants. So I took advantage of that and he was like let's go do full workouts, let's go do what the VA couldn't or wouldn't, right. So he was like, listen, I went to nephrology school with a pathologist and he's a really good friend of mine. We actually roommate, you know, we were roomies in school and do you mind if I have him, if I get your slides from the VA, you mind if I have this? My friend you know friend of mine look at your slides and review them. Sure, I don't care, put it on national TV for all I care, everybody review. You know what I mean. Let me know.

Keith D. Terry: 41:20

Right.

Daniel Holmes : 41:21

And so he did and he calls me. It was like I forget the day, man, but I remember getting the call and he called me. Usually we talk over text.

Keith D. Terry: 41:29

Yes.

Daniel Holmes : 41:30

Which is awesome, because the doctor that could give you a cell phone number that you can communicate over text message is amazing. By the way, if you're listening and you're a doctor, get close to your patients anyway. So I had a text communication with the doc, right, and I'm like hey, you know he calls me. I'm like okay, he never calls, answer the phone, what's up. He's like man, okay, listen, good news, got your pathology readings back. But my pathologist, my doctor friend, he's got a question and he wants to know were you ever a firefighter? I'm like no. He's like you don't work as a firefighter. I'm like, nah, man, I work in, like, the collision industry. Like you know, I'm not a firefighter. And then I was like why do you ask? And he was like so, in your slides, in your biopsy, there's the presence of a chemical used to fight fires. It's called AFFF aqueous film forming foam. Are you familiar with that? And a light bulb went off and I was like I know exactly what this is from. Mind you, I haven't talked to a lot of people about this, I haven't shared my story. I hadn't, you know, been very vocal about the Navy and the operation I'm about to tell you about. Okay. They didn't really understand what was going on and to understand why I have AFFF in my kidney today, I got to tell you the story that happened on the ship.

Daniel Holmes : 42:59

So on May 22nd 2008, I was on board the USS George Washington that was leaving Valparaiso, chile, working in like a law enforcement area so where we were teaching advanced tactics to the military, police officers and stuff on the ship. So we were doing a lot of like room clearing tactics and all that kind of stuff. So I was in teach mode on board this ship and I was standing a watch, because everybody in the Navy stands a watch. So I was standing my watch. I was on the forward bow of the aircraft carrier. We had to see, you know, I got my M16A2, got my grenade launcher, got my you know, my Beretta 9. That's how old I am and I'm going to date myself. I got a Beretta 9 on my drop leg, my Blackhawk holster. You know, I thought I was the coolest guy in the world, you know, and my boots is all super shiny. You boots is all super shiny. You know, I took a lot of pride. I had these chloroform jungle boots, man. That was so hard to get and nobody could get. Everybody was like oh, where'd you get them? Boots.

Daniel Holmes : 43:59

Anyway, a fire broke out on the ship and we were doing a refueling at sea. So a ship comes alongside our aircraft carrier and gives us gas. So that way a nuclear aircraft carrier doesn't run off of gas, but we use gas for list control, to balance the ship and to fuel the aircraft on the ship. We've got to be able to gas up all the fighter jets, right so, and the helicopters. So we were routine scheduled to pull alongside and transfer some fuel over. But over the radio and on the security net we could hear that the ship was blowing black smoke. Now when we're chugging along at sea you can't really tell that the ship had a lot of black smoke coming from it because of the wind. So it was blowing it behind us. But sitting behind us, kind of like diesel trucks, like sitting in the driver's seat, you don't really tell. You can't really tell that there's a bunch of black smoke coming out the back. Right, you're sitting behind that thing, right, smoke coming out the back. Right, you're sitting behind that thing, right.

Daniel Holmes : 44:57

There was a fire on the ship and it took a long time for us to find that fire. We thought it was up on the flight deck so we responded to there. It wasn't there. Long story short, there was an AC boiler down in the very, very bottom of this reactor space in the ship that had been removed the last time. We were in port. So there's this big ventilation shaft that went from the very bottom of the ship out. Were in port, so there's this big ventilation shaft that went from the very bottom of the ship out. So what we were seeing with the smoke was smoke coming out of that vent. But we, the smoke was thick, it was, you know, you don't know where it's coming from, right. And then they stopped the ship. So now the smoke has nowhere to go and it's just there right now. Now it's just bellowing in its in its space. So we're trying to.

Daniel Holmes : 45:33

So we get the firefighting crew, we we call away a fire. There's people for this man, it's not even my job, they're people for this. So the firefighter crew is coming there and they go and they're looking in there and they're like we don't see nothing. So we call for a Nifty, right? A Nifty is a firefighting tool that can allow you to. It's a thermal imaging tool that allows you to look through smoke and that way you can see through some thick black smoke and kind of see the source of the fire. You can see the trash can burning or whatever it is right. So we grab the nifty. We don't see a source of the fire. We don't see it, wow, only smoke. We don't even see heat. There's not even a lot of heat coming from this thing yet. So the ship calls away and activates all of its procedures for a fire on board. What started happening at that point? Little fires.

Keith D. Terry: 46:17

Now, mind you, an aircraft carrier is made of steel, but on a ship a fire is a serious, serious thing.

Daniel Holmes : 46:25

Listen. So in the Navy, everybody is a firefighter before your, whatever job, you are right. Marine Corps, everybody's you know a killer before they're an aircraft mechanic. In the Army, everybody learns how to shoot before they are you know what. So in the Navy we're firefighters. We learn that in boot camp. That's bred into you because shipboard fires are devastating and a lot of people can lose lives really fast. So this fire is building, you know, and we've had little small fires on ships before and it's like, yeah, it's a fire to go out. Right, you've had fire drills at work. You've had fire drills in school. You've had. And you always assume that they're false Until it's not. And this one wasn't. And I was in it because I was in the smoke and I was going to try and direct traffic as a as a law enforcement representative on the ship. Direct traffic as a law enforcement representative on the ship. My job at that point is to maintain good order and discipline, maintain the calm, collective attitude of the personnel on the ship.

Keith D. Terry: 47:22

Don't freak out and you were in that for a long period of time.

Daniel Holmes : 47:26

So we were in that for a long period of time. So what we did end up hearing is that there was four trapped sailors in a JP-5, which is a jet fuel pump room located at the very bottom of the aircraft carrier, and they are in charge of moving the fuel back and forth. Right, they were getting ready to set up for the transfer and accept the fuel coming in from the fuel ship right. So they're down there in that space and they're working. The fire is on the other side of the wall of their space, so think of a box. The fire originated and again, we didn't find this out until after action reports and so the fire originated in the space adjacent to them. Jet fuel is flammable, hello. So some saving graces. The reason I'm here today and we didn't expire on that ship is because we offloaded all of the missiles and bombs to another ship because we were doing a home port change. That make sense. So we transfer ammunition.

Daniel Holmes : 48:28

They gave us a whole bunch of like brand new mattresses. So we were getting all this upgraded stuff. Right, people were getting upgraded furniture. You know they're trying to do some upgrades on the ships. All of the most of like the bomb bays that hold all the missiles that could blow up in a fire were replaced with mattresses. So is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well, the mattresses, when they get hot, they get hot and they fuel fire, but they don't explode. But a ship is like a radiator, right, it's all steel. So wherever that fire is, it's going to radiate the heat outwards.

Keith D. Terry: 49:01

I see your point Okay.

Daniel Holmes : 49:04

Okay, we watched in 9-11 what happens to heat as it radiates with extreme temperatures.

Keith D. Terry: 49:11

Steel starts to expand. Get more pliable, yeah.

Daniel Holmes : 49:14

Okay.

Daniel Holmes : 49:16

So at some point steel turns to liquid, right. So it's imperative we find this fire. Yes, there goes a call out for these four trap guys that are down in the bottom of the ship and we organize a team to help get these guys out of there. You know, we get down to the command center and they're basically, like you know, over security dispatch. They dispatch us down. We get down there, we're in the command center getting briefed a little bit about what's going on in the situation, and we've had some failed attempts with the ship's firefighters, who this is their job, this is what they train to do, this is what they do every day. They're very good at it. These are the best firefighters I've ever met in my life and they're trained to go down into these spaces and run towards the flames and deal with whatever's there. Well, when they can't even get to the space at the bottom of the ship because it's too hot, because the fire hoses that they're taking down to that space are rupturing, because the water that they're spraying to try and keep things cool is turning to steam, the fire is so hot that it's melting the boots of the firefighters that are down there, so they have to retreat, all while there's four lives that need to be saved further down, farther down, farther down.

Daniel Holmes : 50:30

And so we took charge. That's what I do. We take charge. There's four guys. Let's come up with a plan to get those four guys out of there. There's no guns and bullets down there, right, there's nobody shooting at me. Let's get down there and let's go handle it. Man, search and rescue is what I do. This is what we do.

Keith D. Terry: 50:48

Let's go rescue these guys, man this is about okay, so you okay so.

Daniel Holmes : 50:53

I put together, we put together a team, we go down, we formulate a plan. Now, mind you, let me set the stage for you. I'm in all woodland camis Now. They got all digital stuff. But now I was in the old school woodland camis. I got a. I got a military police duty belt on with handcuffs, a firearm, a rifle, you know what I mean. Like I got magazines, I got stuff on my belt. I got an ASP baton, a collapsible ASP. You know, I got all these different things on my duty belt.

Daniel Holmes : 51:26

So as we make our way to where the entrance point is, where the other firefighting teams are staged, I drop off the weapons, right. I'm like, hey, let's get the weapons. I can't take these things into a hot space. Right, right, right, and formulating a plan is what they wanted us to do. But there's a mindset in the special operations community and the mindset is that never give up that never quit attitude. There's something different in your mind that is taught to you when you are in that world of special operations that isn't taught necessarily to the regular military. Okay, so we take this opportunity to go to formulate a team. We grabbed some of the silver, what we call potato suits. These are firefighting suits meant for aircraft fires. You've probably seen them on TV National Geographic, them guys in those silver suits sitting next to like lava in the background and meant to

Daniel Holmes : 52:21

take extreme heat right. Meant to take extreme heat. Looks like foil. The problem with those suits is that when they get wet you have to keep them wet because you will bake like a baked potato in hot environments. From the inside out, you will cook from the inside like a baked potato. We wrap our potatoes in foil and put them in oil. That same thing is about to happen to you. So you got to go down there and you can't bring water and the water don't work anyway because it's just been rupturing the hoses. It's too hot. Now, I'm not trained for hot environments. Let me correct myself. I was trained for hot environments in boot camp, in simulations with propane and they can turn the fire off Right.

Keith D. Terry: 53:06

Right, but this is no, you're not turning this fire off.

Daniel Holmes : 53:10

Yeah, turn this thing off. And this is no, you're not turning this fire off. Yeah, turn this thing off. And this is all. This black smoke is coming up to Mind you all this chaos is happening throughout the ship. Heat is still radiating on the ship. There are spontaneous fires popping up all over the ship. The entire ship turns into one large firefighting effort. They sound away the general quarters. Every single person on that ship that is in the United States Navy is now a firefighter and your only mission is to save this ship. So that's what happened, and in my little part of it was pulling four guys out from the bottom. I'm sure there's a million other stories of what happened that day on that ship. Did they survive the four people? Yeah, so let me tell you about that.

Daniel Holmes : 53:53

We get down to the ship, we get down to the hatch. We actually make it a couple of stories down further, farther than the firefighting crews were able to with their regular firefighting suit. So I got the silver foil suit. I got a regular firefighter suit underneath of that and I got some camis, okay. So I got some camis. Okay. So I got some heat resistant. I got a little head thing, you know, whatever.

Daniel Holmes : 54:14

So we go down there and I get to the point of no return, man, and you can see and feel. Let me tell you something I have a hood on, I have a firefighting mask, I'm breathing cold oxygen. Okay, we get down to the point to this landing, um, and to get down there it's like a little hole. It's probably a hole about I don't know five feet in diameter, if that, and you crawl down and it's a ladder. It's hand over hand, more or less all the way down.

Daniel Holmes : 54:42

So once you get down, there's a couple landings and then you got some steep ladder wells and then you got some more holes. You go down. Okay, that's how ships are built, okay, so it's just wide enough to get a firefighter with an oxygen tank on his back through the hole. That's all that can fit through that hole. That's what they're designed for. So we go down there. I got everything down there, man. I get to this landing and I just look around and I am in hell. I am in it. I am like the walls are red, the steel floor is warped, everything's glowing around me.

Daniel Holmes : 55:15

They did not survive, not the heat mirage the heat mirage that you could see. You can see the mirage in the air as I was standing there. But you can't stand there and get enthusiastic about all that too long Right, because I can't get rubbernecked about it, because it's hot, my boots are melting you gotta get in and get out I'm not, I ain't dead yet, let's go.

Daniel Holmes : 55:37

So we keep getting down there. Now we get that the hatch. It's a flat hatch that opens vertically. That's got a like a wheel on the top. You've probably seen in some movies right, this hatch, now this hatch, you have to go down the ladder. Well, so, so open the hatch.

Daniel Holmes : 55:51

Now, in general quarters, when a ship goes into general quarters, they lock all the doors on the ship. Okay, they do that for water intrusion, fire retardant, all that kind of stuff. So they lock everything. It's called dog zebra. They shut everything down and they lock all the doors on the ship. In order to open one of those doors on the ship, you have to contact somebody in damage control so they understand and know in the ship's layout that that door is possibly open. Anyway, we get down there. We've been given permission to open the door. But the wheel that you turn, you just turn it like a half a turn. It's glowing red. So we look at each other man who's going to grab it. The guys we got to rescue that are screaming on the phones that they're dying are on the other side of this door. We are here. There's no going back.

Keith D. Terry: 56:39

And you know, I would assume they don't have the equipment. On that, you do the people that I'm with. No, no, no.

Daniel Holmes : 56:52

No, I'm saying, the people you're trying to rescue don't? The people I'm trying to rescue are in t-shirt, cami, pants, boots. Right, there's the people I'm trying to rescue. That's what they're. They're in their regular workspace. They're just transferring fuel. So we look at each other.

Daniel Holmes : 56:58

I realized, all right, I have an asp baton on my belt underneath all this crap. I go, reach all up in, I grab this thing, I whip it out, I stick it in the hole in the in the wheel. It like welded itself to the wheel. Man, anybody that's on the g-dub, go down there and check and see if that my ass was still stuck to the handle. I'd like to have it open. The handle top pops over. Okay, the guys are in the bilge. Now the ship's bilge is the very bottom of the ship. That's where all the grease and the dips spit. You know, the guy couldn't make it to the bathroom in the middle of the night, decided just to pee on the wall and let it run down into the bilge of the ship. These guys are in the bilge trying to stay cool because their space, the fire, is not in this space, the heat is, but the heat, wow, wow. And they're screaming.

Daniel Holmes : 57:56

They got a sound powered phone right. So these phones, you know you scream into them and that's where everybody can hear you. So they got this sound power phone, man. And so as soon as we pop that hatch, bro, these guys can't run it up out of there. Bro, I don't care. Hands, bare hands, bare feet, fast as all, get out. Man.

Daniel Holmes : 58:12

Now we're just lifting people, here you go, take them, take them, get them out, take them, get them out. It's too hot. One of the guys grabs my hood and the hood firefighting hood falls off my face and it falls about 17 feet. Now, mind you, I'm peeking my head down into what is in that space the ceiling. Okay, so I'm peeking my head down from the ceiling and these guys are coming up the ladder. Well, and we're helping them out and I'm just handing guys off. There's only four of these guys in there. One of them pulls my mask off my face, it falls down the steps and lands at the bottom of the landing and I inhaled, I took a huge breath in of that hot air and that was the first time that I got to experience what those guys were breathing and I was like, holy, how are these guys still alive, bro?

Daniel Holmes : 58:58

This is so. This is crazy to me right now. Got the last guy past me In the firefighting space that we were in is a JP5 fuel pump room and that is designed if that space were to catch fire. They have these big, huge foam cannons located on the ceiling and they blanket the entire space with foam. Looks like a foam party, right, and same thing they would do on an aircraft on real hot jet fuel. So they they douse the foam. They got these big they're eight foot round nozzles and they just dump out foam all over the entire space.

Daniel Holmes : 59:31

Well, knowing the ship and knowing what happens after the triple F goes off, the Halon goes off and Halon removes the oxygen from the space. Oh, my mask just fell down, a triple F just went off. I took a big breath of it. I'm covered in foam, the guys are above me, I'm last out, I rolled out and I'm like they're about to suck the oxygen right out of this room. And it was the pressure difference from opening that right, like opening a pressure cooker, like you know it. Just all that pressure popped out and that's what set that off. So I'm covered in the AFFF. The guys get out. All of them live, no significant injuries, only some small burns. Way to go. Great story. It was a successful operation, man, but it's something that we're not trained for. I'm not trained to go down there and rescue guys in those kind of situations. I'm trained to go in the water and grab somebody or something, not a fire.

Keith D. Terry: 1:00:29

Your doctor asked you this. You remember that you had this episode. Now, that's not omission from the VA at all. When did you know? So so, very quickly, because I'm glad you can go over. You still good on time. I got plenty of time.

Daniel Holmes : 1:00:45

I got time all day long.

Keith D. Terry: 1:00:46

So so. So now you, you know you have a clinician, you have a medical team that's starting to put things together.

Daniel Holmes : 1:00:55

My medical team is me and my wife.

Keith D. Terry: 1:00:58

Not the.

Daniel Holmes : 1:00:59

I mean the nephrologist and the pathologist that found the 8FFF. But the fight to get them linked can't be done by the medical team Gotcha.

Keith D. Terry: 1:01:10

So what did you do? Because this is the change agency.

Daniel Holmes : 1:01:13

This is the change agent right.

Keith D. Terry: 1:01:16

I want to. I want people to understand what you had to do.

Daniel Holmes : 1:01:19

So I grabbed the operation that, the after action report published by the Navy. I grabbed that. I grabbed a whole bunch of other information. I submitted a claim for disability to see if I can get this, because it's obviously caused. I mean, how can you deny this? Right, you got a triple F is right here. Here's the slide says it's in there. Here's the operation that says he was a part of this operation. These two together equals approval, is what I'm thinking.

Daniel Holmes : 1:01:53

No, man, and it didn't. And they didn't understand what was going on. They didn't understand. We're just in this no mode. The whole VA system was in no mode. No, new medications were not a proven disability. We don't. We don't even know what you have. We don't, right.

Daniel Holmes : 1:02:05

So all this different stuff was happening at the same time as I'm fighting in a bunch of different areas.

Daniel Holmes : 1:02:10

So I'm fighting for different medications. I'm fighting for the proper treatment, right, I'm fighting to go to the Mayo Clinic because the Space Coast doctor that I was using we had exceeded where his threshold was at and I appreciate him because he was able to give me and tell me hey, man, I don't know anything else more of this, you have to go to an even more specialist. So he got me into the Mayo Clinic. But the VA didn't want to pay for that because you can't go from community care referral to a referral. You got to start all over again in a VA system. So once I was done with him and he referred me to the Mayo Clinic, I take that paperwork and give it to the VA and they're like no, we're not paying for all that. I'm like what? So I got to go through the whole thing, back through nephrology. Nephrology's got to identify the fact that they can't treat me, and now we get a new client and the new client is Mayo Clinic.

Keith D. Terry: 1:03:02

Now, daniel. In the meantime, are you going through dialysis. Are you? What are you?

Daniel Holmes : 1:03:06

doing. My kidney function was 27%. I wasn't a dialysis. I didn't qualify for dialysis at the time. So you know and there was hope I had read that like one in three go into spontaneous remission with no medication needed. Well, that wasn't me.

Daniel Holmes : 1:03:21

There was a lot of complications because of the different medications that we were trying to use. Right, there's nothing on label that's meant for membranous nephropathy or this kidney disease. There was nothing made yet. So they kept denying the medications that we wanted to try. We wanted to try this and we wanted to try that and they were like nah, man, we're not going to try that, we're not going to spend Listen, all these. I had ended up getting.

Daniel Holmes : 1:03:49

Mayo Clinic helped me get approval for my rituximab infusions and they were denying that because the military or the VA didn't really recognize these chemical toxic exposures as debilitating or disabling. So that was the fight. Once I realized that, I was like they're never going to hear me because they don't understand that toxic chemical exposure can cause these things. There's not a lot of research done that they're going to rely on that shows that these things are caused and these toxic chemical exposures are caused. So at the time the administration that was in the White House had a White House complaint line for veterans. Okay, so they published it. I called hey, white House, here's my issues. They investigated it. They took all my case. They helped me fight. The white house helped me fight. So then when I show up at congress and I start talking and I go to dc and I have these conversations with these people and the fact that they've taken away the veterans white house complaint line, I let them know that I saved my life, man.

Daniel Holmes : 1:04:52

Wow, the fact that there was the administration was pushing the pact act. The pact act was is an official act that was being introduced in the into legislation that would recognize toxic chemical exposures and these diseases that come from them, whether they're burn pits or all these other things that you can be exposed to. And once that kind of got approved and passed, my fight became a little easier. It became a little easier to get things approved. I still had a journey with off-label medications. That's just going to be it until they create a cure, create actual treatment program. I didn't have a treatment program. There wasn't a treatment program established for memnour's nephropathy, really, except for high-dose steroids. But I had to develop one for myself because again, I, had 12 months to live.

Daniel Holmes : 1:05:46

What? Am I going to do for the next 12 months. I'm going to figure out how to live past that.

Keith D. Terry: 1:05:50

I can smile on that, but you know to hear that is cringe worthy. So from the first time you heard that you had this illness to the aha moments standing in Congress, how many months was that?

Daniel Holmes : 1:06:05

Years, Months Still going on, man, I mean my first time I did a virtual during COVID. I did a virtual. A Nefcare put on a Hill Day event and I attended that virtually from the hospital so I could sit with constituents and I could sit with these senators and I can, like we are today, from the hospital and tell them what I'm going through and let them see what I'm going through. And that really got my once I started sharing that story and that aspect of it, it really started getting some traction and things started getting approved and policy started changing and that kind of stuff. So it was like, hey, that's effective, I need to keep doing that. If that's working, I need to keep doing that. So we just kept going back and I go back every year and we have a Hill Day every year and we go there and we talk to, you know, the representatives, we talk to the senators, these people who make the laws. Man, we got to change the way that these things are done.

Keith D. Terry: 1:07:01

So now I mean you essentially and I'm going to say it my way led a one man campaign for change. No, no money, no organization, except for you and your wife. You know Nefcure helped. You know what, what? What you know? Where are you now with the creation of your advocacy? I love the story. You've gone from the aha moment to fight. Now you are a nationally recognized kidney advocacy person.

Daniel Holmes : 1:07:34

So that sounds crazy, just hearing that, that sounds crazy Just hearing that you know, but it's the truth.

Keith D. Terry: 1:07:38

So you know. Help me to understand your life. Now you got a full time job. What are you doing? What? How does how does life look for Daniel Holmes?

Daniel Holmes : 1:07:47

So life right now is amazing. We're living in Florida with my wife and my son. My son's getting ready to graduate high school. I'm so blessed to be able to see him graduate. That was one of the things that just was in my head. Like that I had so many doubts about, right, right, but we're starting the Enlisted Kidney Foundation, and the Enlisted Kidney Foundation is going to be a nonprofit organization that's going to help veterans like myself in a bunch of different ways, so not only veterans, but regular kidney patients. We want to get kidney disease awareness out there in the affluent communities. You know, in the black and brown communities, we're disproportionately affected by kidney disease.

Keith D. Terry: 1:08:27

I mean it's crazy.

Daniel Holmes : 1:08:29

So the Enlisted Kidney Foundation is going to help put on some events that are going to raise some awareness about that. I want to help people get to Nefcure events. I would love for the Enlisted Kidney Foundation to sponsor some veterans to be able to get out to some of these events and partake and get some more education. I would love the Enlisted Kidney Foundation to be able to partner with other organizations that are about spreading the wealth or not the wealth, but the health and equity and spreading the word about kidney disease and how. You know catching it early matters. You know catching it early absolutely matters. My situation is a little different than most with kidney disease. Usually with kidney disease it pops out of nowhere and by the time they know it and they go to the doctors they're in stage four, stage five kidney failure. You know that's most people, but we can grab them at 18 to 25 years old.

Keith D. Terry: 1:09:29

Which typically means dialysis and all that kind of stuff.

Daniel Holmes : 1:09:32

It means a straight road to dialysis. You know, and there's no, there's not coming, they're not coming back from that as dialysis and transplant. I want to fix the kidney.

Keith D. Terry: 1:09:39

And that's, and you don't, you're not dialysis now. No, sir.

Daniel Holmes : 1:09:43

Okay, great function. My kidney function is 87, 87%.

Keith D. Terry: 1:09:47

Yeah.

Daniel Holmes : 1:09:48

It went from up from 23. 27 Eighty seven percent. Yeah, it went from up from twenty three Twenty seven to eighty seven percent. I walk around with almost perfect kidney function. If I go to the doctor today and I tell him.

Keith D. Terry: 1:09:57

I have kidney disease.

Daniel Holmes : 1:09:58

They look at me like, ok, but this is a long battle, because my kidney disease is in a partial remission right now. Could, could the issue come back, absolutely, absolutely. And I'm in. I'm in a spot in between treatments. So I've done four rounds of rituximab, which is a blood infusion. I have some ongoing treatment stuff that I do, a lot of medications that I take. Blood pressure management control is huge for me. Those are more or less the cause of both of my strokes. I had eight pulmonary embolisms, so I'm on anticoagulation for probably the rest of my life.

Keith D. Terry: 1:10:29

And people don't realize that one embolism is enough to kill a person.

Daniel Holmes : 1:10:33

Absolutely. I drove to the hospital with a pulmonary embolism in my lung and they were like why did you drive here? I was like I don't know, I couldn't really breathe, it was hard.

Daniel Holmes : 1:10:40

I had chest pain, it was hard to breathe and they're like you drove to Orlando from where you live, and I was like, yeah and Like, sir, you could have stroked out in the car. That blood clot could have traveled to your brain while you were driving. Don't do that, no more. And I was like I don't even know. I didn't know how serious it was. I didn't know that when you spill that much protein in your urine, you lose your natural anticoagulation, so you have to supplement it.

Daniel Holmes : 1:11:07

So, anyway, we are starting the Enlisted Kidney Foundation nonprofit organization. It's not off and running yet, but that's our hopes. It's our hopes and dreams. So we're going to start there and we're going to turn this thing into whatever we can. Man. We're going to try and make this as big of a foundation as we possibly can. I want to teach people how to advocate for themselves. I want to teach people how to do their two-minute story. I want to teach people how to get their elevator speech together. I want to teach people how to advocate effectively, because there's a difference between talking and talking to somebody that's listening.

Keith D. Terry: 1:11:42

So now that's where I wanted to go, because you know I'm going to thank you for the time, but we're going to run out in a little bit. But my question to you is this but we're going to run out in a little bit, but my question to you is this you know you have spoken to Congress and I and not, and so talk to us a little bit about the difference between. I know what it is about, like giving a speech, but I've never gone in front of people who can make policy changes and advocates and advocated for a policy change or awareness. Walk us through that, which is what you mean. I mean, you did it. You didn't have, unless someone taught you how to do it, but this was on the job training, I would assume, but so what is on the job, training, spitballing at the hip, and so what have?

Keith D. Terry: 1:12:25

you learned speaking in front of Congress and the NIH and FDA. What would you say to people?

Daniel Holmes : 1:12:31

I have learned that kidney disease does not care about your job title. I have learned that kidney disease doesn't care how much money you have in your bank account. So for me to stand up in front of Congress, those are people that could have kidney disease as well and those are people that probably have relatives that could have kidney disease. Most people I talk to know somebody with kidney disease. They just don't know nothing about it. So let me come here and educate Congress. Let me educate the people who make the decisions for us, the people who are putting the red tape right, the people who are saying no, we're not going to approve that medication. Why? Because it's off-label and it doesn't't have membranous nephropathy on it. I need to find somebody that can sit in that seat that makes those decisions, that can remove that red tape. Gotcha, you know the ability of a veteran to be able to go out and get life-saving healthcare without having to turn his ER room into a biohazard lab. That's how I had to do it.

Keith D. Terry: 1:13:37

And can you tell when you know when they weren't listening, because you just said you want to tell people? There's a difference between talking to people and talking when they're not listening or get them to listen. It's the reaction.

Daniel Holmes : 1:13:44

What do you mean by that?

Daniel Holmes : 1:13:46

It's the reaction. It's the reaction of the audience that you're talking to. So talking effectively means you got to be in the audience that you're talking to. So talking effectively means you got to be in the right places. You got to be screaming from the mountaintops in the right places. You know what I mean If I'm talking kidney disease and I'm talking and I want 18 to 25 year olds right, Most of them not on Facebook.

Daniel Holmes : 1:14:06

I got to be where they are. I got to meet them where they are. I got to go to the basketball courts and the football teams and I got to be where they are. I got to meet them where they are. I got to go to the basketball courts and the football teams and I got to go to these sports events and I got to go and talk kidney disease awareness. I got to talk to some of these people Listen, I coached high school football for 15 years Right, and the physicals that they do for these sports? They don't even test for kidney disease. They don't even pee in a cup. How do you know these people aren't spilling proteins? Test for kidney disease. They don't even pee in a cup. How do you know these people aren't spilling proteins. So I want to be able to take this foundation and go into those spaces where those people are and I want to talk kidney disease where they are.

Keith D. Terry: 1:14:41

Let's talk habits. You're a healthy guy. What daily practice do you have to stay healthy with your life? How do you keep things moving forward?

Daniel Holmes : 1:14:50

We say moving forward man, I got so many back issues. Right now I'm dealing with it. Moving feels impossible. Okay, what's your daily, daily stretch? Hydrate, eat a balanced meal. Stay away from the things that you know are going to hurt you right? Okay, I love red meat, but the kidneys hate it, so I got.

Daniel Holmes : 1:15:11

You know, my wife tries to get a camp steak for the fifth time tonight, you know, I mean, you know being conscientious about what I'm putting in my body, more so than I was before, identifying where the sodium is. You know, looking for sodium. I like pickles, dude. You can't drink pickle juice and eat pickles, bro, and you got kidney disease because it's got so much sodium. But yet pickles will get rid of some of the cramps that you may get when you're on some of these medications. But anyway, yeah, man, that's it's kind of. That's kind of that exercise. I swim really often, okay, um, I'm in the gym swimming. I don't lift weights because my body doesn't heal the same way that it used to. So when you are on medications that suppress your immune system the immune I have basically no immune system. So my immune system. When I rip and tear muscle, it takes a year. What would take you a week to recover. Take me a year.

Daniel Holmes : 1:16:06

OK so I don't go in there and get on the bench press no more muscles, I'm just going to stay ripped for me. So I don't go in there and get on the bench press no more Muscles, this is going to stay ripped for me. So me it's like cardio right. So like can I get in, can I swim? But it's low impact stuff, because my knees and my back and jumping out of helicopters ain't fun when you hit the water, you know what I mean. Especially like 90 feet, that sucks, but these kind of things happen, man no-transcript, turn it over to you for a second.

Keith D. Terry: 1:17:00

My, my last question is well, first let the preambles. This podcast was set up because I wanted to, like you, make a difference to. You know folks who are looking to be inspired, to learn, to know that they can kind of create their next big thing, and you've done that. And so my question to you is to those folks out there, whether they have a business, whether they are looking to start a business, what words of encouragement would you give them? And the reason I say it in the last 90 days this is not a political statement, but in the last 80 days, a lot of things have changed. A lot of organizations are shifting tariffs, high prices, things are just shifting all over the place. You know, here the corollary is someone finding out they don't have a job. You found out your life was supposed to change in 12 months. You're going to lose it. You know, what advice would you give to my listeners about Daniel's plight and how you see the world going forward?

Daniel Holmes : 1:18:08

It's hard to be a kidney patient right now, man, in 2025. I will tell you that it's hard. It's hard. The government's not making it much easier and our administration's not making it much easier on our government employees. So those things are hard. So, moving forward, it's just day by day. At this point, man, it's just you take the punches as they come and prepare yourself for that.

Daniel Holmes : 1:18:28

The way that you do that is through knowledge, education, educating yourself about what's going on, whether it's, you know, regular kidney disease you got kidney disease from having diabetes or whatever. Find community, whether that's your church, whether that's your fraternity right, whether that's your family, whether that's a nonprofit organization like Nepcure, you know, or the Enlisted Kidney Foundation. You find somebody that you can latch on to, man that's willing to support you in your efforts, and you surround your world around that person or that thing or whatever that is, and surround your world around that. You know, like the military taught us to be mentally strong. It taught me to be mentally strong and mentally tough. And being part of such a amazing special operations community in the Navy, you really learn how to be something bigger than yourself, you know, and to live for something bigger than you, you know, and I think that we have a hard time looking at that in our country, because everybody wants something for themselves. They only want it for me, and me, me, me, me, me.

Daniel Holmes : 1:19:37

You know, and it's like I remember that feeling, like I just want to live, I just want a transplant. The patients are saying, or I just want this medication and I, I, I, but it's a we. My wife wants me alive, my son wants me alive, my parents wants me alive. My son wants me alive, my parents want me alive, my friends want me alive, my support groups want me alive. The world needs me alive so we can go out here and change it. They used to, you know, a death sentence. You used to get a death sentence when you were diagnosed with diabetes.

Keith D. Terry: 1:20:08

Yes.

Daniel Holmes : 1:20:09

Now you can fix diabetes and CVS. Yeah, you know, that's where I'm trying to take kidney disease, man.

Keith D. Terry: 1:20:16

Well you know it, it, it is still true, kind of true. When you, once you go on dialysis, there's fine, it seems to be a finite period of time and, daniel, I'm Thank you for having me man, I definitely appreciate it. I just wanted to give you a final word or two and I thank you for that and I just want to sit here and say well first.

Daniel Holmes : 1:20:41

I don't know if you have any final comments because I'm going to close it out. My last comment I'd have is our motto that we live by so others may live, and the Enlisted Kidney Foundation you never have a fight.

Keith D. Terry: 1:20:51

Daniel the Enlisted Kidney Homes that is what he goes by. I'm delighted that, daniel, you joined us. God bless you. Brother, let's stay in touch and if there's anything that I can do to assist you, you got my number and I'm just happy that you're doing well, because your son needs you and your wife needs you, and so do we. Thanks for listening to the Next Big Thing. I'm your host, keith D Terry. If you've enjoyed this episode and you'd like to support this podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media or leave a rating and a review. To catch all the latest from me, you can follow me on my YouTube channel at Keith D Terry. If you want to recommend a guest, please email me at info at terryperformancegroupcom. This has been produced by your host and Jade Productions.