CJ Clark: Local spotlight

GARFIELD – Current Garfield-Palouse high school assistant FFA advisor for Garfield-Palouse, CJ Clark, 22 had more than the pandemic to deal with in the last four years. Originally from Richland, Washington Clark explained that two weeks after graduating high school in 2019, he started to develop health problems.

"I had pain in my stomach. They kept calling it pancreatitis," Clark said.

Clark would then move in with his stepmom in Gresham Oregon, who got him into the hospital the next day. "They said it was appendicitis, so I got my appendix removed," he said, "I couldn't eat anything, and my weight went from 155 to 110 pounds."

At this point Clarks lungs started filling up with blood, and he was put on a ventilator for the first time. Clark's kidneys were starting to fail.

This didn't stop Clark from chasing his dreams. In October 2019 he joined the fire department in Garfield.

"I was life flighted from here to Oregon. That's when I went on a ventilator for the second time," he said.

In the beginning of august Clark was moved to Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) where there were way more doctors and specialists. "There was a normal doctor, rheumatologist, and a cardiologist," he said. While at OHSU Clark's kidneys got worse.

"Dialysis was taking five liters of blood everytime we went," Clark said.

Clark would have to go on a ventilator for a second time, and the doctors started to do Chemotherapy having figured out he had an autoimmune disease, ANCA-vasculitis.

"ANCA-Vasculitis attacks red blood cells in the body. My lungs had holes in them, and I had heart failure," Clark said, explaining that he went home to Garfield for 12 hours, and then was life-flighted to Sacred Heart in Spokane. "It was my fire chief who set up the landing for me to be life flighted out." This was the last time he would go on a ventilator, which was critical at the time Clark explained "The doctor said in 48 hours I would have died."

Clark had dialysis, a plasma exchange, and started slowly getting better, "luckily my heart recovered," he said, relieved that six months of chemo had stopped.

Clark was on and off the call list for a transplant. "I got a call Saturday morning about getting a transplant. I had surgery Monday morning," Clark said. Clark explained that during Covid, Washington State had banned elective surgeries. Transplant surgeries are elective. "I got three phone calls before I finally got one. The last one was it."

Clark was happy to finally get back to living his life, and explained that he lives for the moment "The past four years I haven't really got to live life. Transplant is lifesaving, because now I feel like I have a life."

A volunteer firefighter in 2020-2021, and in the 2020 EMT class Clark didn't let his health issues stop him from making a difference. "I'm currently an assistant FFA advisor for Garfield. I joined the Colfax Firefighter department. Applied and was accepted into University of Idaho."

U of I told Clark in the event of a transplant he could join the college in pursuing a degree in agriculture education to be a high school FFA advisor. He is currently working towards this dream while helping the FFA youth of Garfield.

Clark fought to keep going for his family, little brother and sister, and the people around him. "I had to get through for them." He encourages his students to pursue their dreams, "No matter what is thrown at you there's always a way to go up. Rock bottom doesn't mean you can't overcome it. You can always get back up and keep going."