AUBURN - When Brian Storrs was diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, his co-workers knew right away they had to do whatever it took to help.

Storrs, who worked the third shift at Wal-Mart in Auburn, is currently awaiting a kidney transplant for his recent diagnosis of end-stage renal disease.

End-stage renal disease is a condition in which the kidneys permanently fail to work.

“We just felt that we had to do something to help,” said Jamie Gleason, a co-worker of Storrs during a benefit in his honor at the Ukrainian National Club, on Washington Street, Sunday afternoon. “The family has been having to deal with so much lately.”

Storrs' mother is currently a patient at St. Joseph's Hospital in Syracuse because she recently had her right leg amputated due to complications from a long battle with diabetes.

Storrs, who is also a professional bowler with the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA), said he had originally attributed his tired and achy feelings to overexertion.

“Between working, taking care of

my mother, and touring with the PBA, I thought that I just needed to slow down,” he said. “It wasn't until I began to have blackouts at work that I thought that it could have been anything else.”

It was a good thing he went to see his doctor when he did.

“After running tests, my doctor called and told me to get myself to the emergency room within a half-hour,” he said. “It was later on that my doctor told me that if I hadn't come to see him when I did I would have probably died throughout the weekend.”

With his mother being a patient at St. Joseph's, Storrs said he went to that emergency room that day.

“Within 40 minutes of arriving at the emergency room I found myself in the intensive care unit,” he said. “My mother was in a room just across the hall.”

“It has been a nightmare having to watch my son go through this,” said Storrs' mother, Paula Storrs who was released from the hospital for one day so that she could attend the benefit. “He is just so remarkable and is coping with everything so well.”

Currently, Storrs has been ordered to not work or bowl on the PBA tour. He is receiving dialysis several times per week.

Yet, through it all, Storrs said that it is his mother that he worries about.

“I have my days,” he said. “Today, I feel okay, but there are days when I just want to sit home and cry all day.”

The benefit is not the only support Storrs has received from his Wal-Mart coworkers. Several have volunteered to be tested as a possible kidney donor.

“All of the support of my friends and family has meant to so much to me,” he said. “I knew that I was liked but with all of the caring and thoughtful things that everyone has done has made me feel so warm inside. I truly feel like a loved man. I could never get through any of this without their support.”

To help the family

Contact, Jamie Gleason 515-8320 or Donna Derby 515-8130�

Donations can be sent to: Brian Storrs, c/o Jamie Gleason, 48 Perry St., Auburn, NY, 13021