Daunting fight for young boxer
Orlando boxer, family battling kidney failure
Once a promising Olympic prospect, Norberto Torres remembers the day he stopped boxing: Dec. 12, 2014. Torres ignored the symptoms — the swollen features, the sluggishness, his struggles during sparring sessions — only so long. But he wouldn’t stop “until I went to the hospital and I woke up the next morning with a tube in my stomach.’’ Torres needs a kidney transplant.
INVERNESS — When Norberto Torres first laced on a pair of boxing gloves, he never thought the most important fight of his life would involve being hooked to a machine for 10 hours each night.
His most challenging opponents are bouts with swelling in his face, abdomen and calves — all over his body, really — and cramps that cause debilitating pain. They could come at any time, and with each one, boxing is thrust further into the past.
In his dreams, he is preparing for his fighting chance at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In his current day to day, Torres awakens not knowing whether he will feel well enough to do anything and falls asleep connected to a peritoneal dialysis machine, which does what his body can’t.
Kidney failure is Mike Tyson before Buster Douglas, Ronda Rousey before Holly Holm. A towering presence and a most formidable adversary.
“Boxing is my life,” Torres said. “It’s been bothering me, bothering me a lot. That’s the only thing I really want to do is box.’’
Both of Torres’ kidneys are failing, and just like his mother, Brenda Ramos, and his brother, Brendon, he needs a transplant. Ramos and her husband, Norberto Sr., have five children, and she unknowingly passed on a defective gene.
Her mother and brother suffered from kidney issues.
“I work in the medical field, and I see a lot of people in the same condition [who] quit,” Ramos said. “They stop working, and I will tell them like I tell my kids, ‘Keep going.’ This is not going to stop us.”
According to the National Kidney Foundation, nearly 101,000 people were awaiting kidney transplants as of January. The median wait for a new organ is roughly 31⁄2 years, leaving plenty of time to wonder whether relief from the pain, swelling, dizziness, lack of energy, tiredness and shortness of breath, among other side effects, will arrive.
A transplant is the only long-term remedy. The primary function of kidneys, located below the rib cage on either side of the spine, is to help process the removal of fluid and waste from blood.
“While [being on dialysis] is not a good life by any stretch, it is still a life,’’ said transplant recipient Joe Karan, director of advocacy and education for the National Kidney Foundation of Florida. “You’re maintaining just enough life to get through to either you get a transplant or, if you are not qualified for a transplant, you come to grips with it
mentally. ‘This is my life.’ ’’ Torres is not there yet. He believes he will fight again if he receives a transplant, which is believed to be an unprecedented return to the ring. Torres trains his brother, Israel, to box and stays in close contact with promising professional fighters Erickson Lubin and Dennis Galarza of Orlando and his coach, Jason Galarza (Dennis’ father).
United as young fighters in the Pine Hills section of Orlando, Torres, Lubin and Galarza forged a bond like brothers. They formed a gym called the School of Hard Knocks. Each has the initials “SOHK’’ tattooed on the right side of his chest, a reminder of how they began in boxing and a connection stronger than any disease.
“Getting sick was not too nice, not too good,’’ Lubin said. “He could have really went far. To see him not box, it hurts me. I know how badly he wants to be in the same position that Dennis and I are.’’
Said Dennis Galarza: “Boxing is our passion. To be told one day out of the blue that you won’t box again, it’s like an NBA player. It’s like playing basketball one day and going to the doctor the next day and being told you can never do another layup. I believe that still lingers today, [wondering about] things he could have done with his life. Those are things you would question.’’
Torres could have been more than a contender.
Fighting in the light flyweight class (108-pound division), he reached the semifinals of the USA Boxing nationals in 2011 and competed at the Olympic Trials leading to the 2012 Games in London.
Jason Galarza said he was being approached about pro offers for Torres, whom he said had the potential to fight for world championships. That is, until Torres became sick.
“He had a lot of heart, determination and stuff, and right now, he is lacking all of that, because he doesn’t see anything positive coming out of his situation,’’ Galarza said. “It is just hard. Every time I see him, I just see the hurt in his eyes.’’
Lubin and Dennis Galarza said they noticed Torres was becoming nauseous frequently and struggling with his stamina around the time they turned pro in late 2013. Equipped with a warrior mentality forged by countless punches, thrown and received, Torres kept going despite the warning signs.
Torres’ last fight was two years ago at a Golden Gloves tournament in Coconut Creek.
“I was running every day,’’ he said. “I don’t know why I wasn’t getting faster. It was getting hard. I was getting real dizzy when I ran. I thought that was part of running. Just drink some water. I’m good.’’ Torres was not good. “I was sparring with kids that I was supposed to run through, but they were touching me in my kidneys,’’ he said. “One time, a kid touched me in my kidney, and I couldn’t breathe at all. I wanted to take a knee so bad for the first time. I just kept moving. I could not take a knee.
“I knew it was my kidneys, and after the sparring, I was just in the corner by myself. They were like, ‘What’s wrong, bro? You just keep training. You don’t spar a lot.’ I was like, ‘Nah, that’s not it. I know what it is.’ They were like, ‘I hope you get better, man.’ ’’
Torres finally stopped training and sparring on Dec. 12, 2014, when he was hospitalized. When he was told he could not box anymore, Torres cried.
“I know it hurts him,’’ said his brother, Brendon. “Boxing is everything he wants to do.’’
Torres said having other family members grappling with the same illness is a small comfort.
“We all feel the same pain,’’ he said. “It’s some weird pain. Sometimes we get the same cramp in the same ab. It comes out this far [holding his hand about an inch away from his stomach]. We just have to deal with it until it goes away. The pain like that, cramps in our calves, real bad . . .
“You wake up with a fat face. We all wake up with a fat face sometimes. I don’t want a fat face, swollen eyebrows. It looks like we need to go to the hospital.’’
Torres said he refuses to take medication, because he does not like the way it makes him feel. A few months ago, Torres, who has a tube implanted on the right side of his abdomen for dialysis, was hospitalized because of an infection. After it was removed surgically, Torres did not take painkillers.
He said that pain tolerance can benefit him if he boxes again.
“A lot of stuff that people can’t do, I try to do,’’ Torres said. “Yeah, my mental mind is getting really strong. Physically I try to get stronger, but my bones hurt when I work out sometimes, cramps and stuff like that. It’s no joke.’’
Torres, who moved to Inverness in Citrus County with his parents and siblings in 2011, turned 22 years old last week. While clinging to the hope that he will knock off the ring rust someday, Torres is devising a contingency plan.
He earned his diploma from Inverness Citrus High School in 2013 and plans to go to college. Until then, he trains his brothers, supports Lubin, Galarza and his brother in their boxing pursuits and endures his daily grind.
“I always tell him that if he can’t do something, God has something else for him,’’ Ramos said. “It does not have to be exactly boxing. He could be a coach and still be in boxing. I get worried when he says he wants to go back, because I know he can get hurt.’’
For Torres’ family, the gut checks continue. Norberto’s youngest brother was put on medication this month after doctors discovered his kidneys were shutting down.
“I don’t know what I am going to do with my life,’’ Norberto Torres Sr. said. “I am going to have to start going to church to see if God can help.’’
Kenneth Torres’ diagnosis hit particularly hard.
He is 11 years old, about the same age as Norberto when he boxed for the first time.
“Boxing is my life. It’s been bothering me, bothering me a lot. That’s the only thing I really want to do is box.’’
Norberto Torres, who, along with his mother and brother, need kidney transplants