BATTLING BACK : Buerger Resumes His Sports Career After Kidney Injury

By CHRIS FOSTER

April 30, 1989 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

It was only one rebound. In a pickup basketball game, no less.

Chris Buerger doesn’t even play the sport at Saddleback High School. He’s a water polo junkie.

But on this day, a little more than a year ago, Buerger was playing some hoops with friends. A little exercise, a little fun, a little something to break up an otherwise dull day.

When the shot went up, Buerger went down.

“I got a knee in the back,” He said. “I got up, walked to the side of the court and threw up.”

So much for a dull day.

By the time it was over, Buerger was in the hospital with internal bleeding from a torn kidney. If that wasn’t enough, it turned out to be his only kidney.

Something neither he nor his parents were aware of until that day.

“The doctor told me one out of every 200 people are born with one kidney,” Buerger said “It was the wrong time to find that out.”

There are some things people take for granted in life. Having two kidneys is one of them.

Buerger learned differently. The price of that knowledge was seven days in the hospital and three months of inactivity at his family’s home in Santa Ana.

Through it all, though, Buerger never doubted that he would play water polo again. Athletics were too important to him.

Buerger returned to the team during the summer and was a starter for the Roadrunners last season. He currently competes for the swim team.

Not bad for a guy who was rarely allowed out of the house from April through June last year.

Still, Buerger, a junior, knows that one errant elbow--or knee--will, at the very least, end his athletic career.

“What can you do?” said Mary Buerger, Chris’ mother. “He can’t stop living life. He’s young, there are a lot things he wants to do. We’d be crazy to say no.”

Deiter and Mary Buerger have always encouraged their two sons, Chris and Erich, to be active.

When Chris was young, he competed for a club swim team and played youth soccer. He also surfed, skate-boarded and played pickup basketball every chance he could.

Along the way, Buerger picked up a few bumps and bruises. He twice required stitches and was in a cast for six weeks with a broken hand. It was just part of growing up.

“There was nothing unusual, everybody gets banged up playing sports,” Buerger said. “There was nothing that required going to the hospital or anything like that.”

So when Buerger received a swift kick in the back while playing basketball, he didn’t think it was serious. Even after getting sick, he wasn’t concerned. In fact, he played another game.

But, on the way home, the sharp pain in his back grew steadily worse.

“He staggered in the door, but he didn’t tell us what happened,” Mary Buerger said. “I figured he sprained a muscle in his back. I told him to take a hot bath.”

Said Buerger: “I started feeling dizzy and noticed there was blood in my urine. I knew that something was seriously wrong.”

He told his parents to take him to the hospital. The Buergers didn’t bother to call an ambulance. Instead, they drove.

“I was running red lights and asking Chris, ‘What’s wrong, what happened?’ ” Mary Buerger said. “He looked so pale. The doctor told us later that it was amazing that he was able to get home from the park.”

At the hospital, Buerger was X-rayed, which showed a tear at the bottom of the kidney. It also revealed that it was his only kidney.

While waiting for the test results, Chris tried to comfort his mother.

“We figured he had injured a kidney and he was saying, ‘Don’t worry mom, I have two kidneys. I’ll be all right,’ ” Mary Buerger said. “Then the (kidney) specialist came in and said, ‘I hate to tell you this, but we could only find one kidney.’ I told him, ‘You better look for the other one.’ ”

The doctor explained to the Buergers that Chris must have been born with only one and that it wasn’t that uncommon.

Doctors also told them that they didn’t want to operate immediately. They first wanted to see if it would heal on its own.

For seven days, Buerger was checked every four hours. Mary Buerger remained with her son the entire time, returning home only to change clothes.

Through the first few days, the Buergers feared the worst, that Chris would need a transplant. But after three days, Chris began to improve and doctors decided he wouldn’t need one.

“It really didn’t sink in how serious it was until after a few days,” Buerger said. “I was on painkillers most of the time, so my thoughts weren’t clear. I finally realized that I could have died.

“I kept thinking about what would have happened if I hadn’t of made it or would have needed a transplant. I was thankful that nothing went wrong. I also thought about how big a space there would be in my life if I couldn’t play sports.”

During his last four days in the hospital, Buerger was allowed visitors. Friends and teammates from school dropped by, as did Dan Hemenway, Saddleback’s water polo and swim coach. “I just kind of mentioned that I wasn’t expecting him to play water polo the next season,” Hemenway said. “Chris got real serious. He looked me in the eyes and said, ‘I’m going to play.’ ”

Missing the Roadrunners’ 1988 swim season was bad enough, but Buerger was not about to lose a year of water polo too.

However, that’s no way to rehabilitate a kidney. And, although Buerger was out of the hospital, he was not allowed to return to school.

“The doctors were worried that even the vibration from walking could reinjure it,” said Buerger.

He was basically confined to his house for the next three months. He had a student-teacher come in once a day for an hour so he wouldn’t have to take his sophomore year over. Buerger had a 4.0 grade-point average that semester.

All the time, he was planning to resume his sports career.

His doctors gave him the go-ahead to play in late June. But, they warned him that another injury could mean a transplant.

Buerger felt the risk was worth taking.

“Sports were pretty much the reason I wanted to go to school everyday,” Buerger said. “I got into water polo as a freshman and fell I love with it. I had to play again.”

Buerger, a two-meter man, began playing again in June of 1988. When the fall season started, Buerger was still worrying about his kidney.

“The position I play is the most violent in the game,” he said. “There’s a lot that goes on under the water. The first couple games were pretty scary. I would get stomach cramps and wonder if it was my kidney again.”

Hemenway was also concerned.

“There were a couple matches early in the season when Chris complained about his back,” Hemenway said. “I would pull him out (of the match) immediately.”

When the Roadrunners played Woodbridge, Hemenway’s concern reached its peak. The Warriors played a physical game and were manhandling Buerger on the inside.

Hemenway never asked if Buerger wanted out of the match. But he did ask how Buerger felt at every opportunity.

Buerger got the message.

“It was unspoken, but coach wanted to know if I wanted out,” he said. “I wasn’t leaving. I had to stop worrying about it.”

Buerger remained in the match and scored the winning goal in a 6-5 victory.

“After that game, I didn’t worry about Chris anymore,” Hemenway said. “The kid is tough.”

Deiter and Mary Buerger have stopped worrying about their son too. They see him as the same active kid he has always been.

Even Chris’ friends have started to forget about the injury and the fact he has one kidney.

“For a while, everyone was treating me different,” he said. “Nobody would talk to me about it. After a while, they found out I was still the same person.”

Buerger remains the same as he always was, which means active. Besides water polo and swimming, he has tried out to become a lifeguard for the state.

He also skateboards, surfs and even plays some basketball.

“But I don’t go for rebounds anymore,” he said.