How’s your day? Simple question to what can be a complex answer. Hello, my name is Tom Kulczewski and I’m a “Breaker” of sports cards. As in many situations in life, the what is the foundation, but the why is what’s really important. We will get into both!
Wednesday, October 11, 2023, started the same as a normal Wednesday, but this one had a nervousness in me that most days don’t. My wife, Michelle, and I have four children. The youngest, Malix, is almost 7 years old and most previous entries center around him. The nervousness is because, today Malix has a recheck of his heart. Just a few months ago at Malix’s yearly heart checkup, it was discovered his Mirtal Valve is of concern. Our hope going into today is that the discovery was incorrect and today was a recheck. I did not attend the appointment in the summer due to a busy day at work that had some new releases of sports cards out. I thought his checkup would be routine. This is a mistake I will never make again.
Back to Wednesday. First thing starts with the oldest. Trent is now a Freshman and one of the most dedicated kids I’ve ever met. Every morning I take him to school for “Zero hour” weights. We leave at 6:40 am, I’m back home at 7:00 am. He’s off, now it’s time for the others.
We have two daughters, Lydia (8th grade) and Matea (5th grade). The take care of themselves in the morning. Make their own breakfast, pack their own lunches, etc. Then they are free to help with Malix. Malix is in 1st grade and has incredible determination. Breakfast, getting ready and out the door is typically a 30 minute process. By 7:40 we are in the care and I take them to school. Note, our school district does provide bussing. The kids take the bus home, but in this busy life, I’ve found some days the only time I have with the kids is on the way to school and I cherish that time.
Dad hat is off, now to “breaker” hat. In 2016 I started side business opening sports cards online. It’s evolved into a business with a great team of coworkers and we have a shop in Downtown Waupun, WI to go along with our breaking operation. We started on facebook only. In February we launched our app, Uncommon. It’s available to download on the apple and google play store! In July, Fanatics (who owns Topps) launched their own app and we are fortunate enough to be apart of that too. The app is called: Fanatics Live. Today our shop will be live for many hours on both apps!
Back into work. Double check pricing, get ready for a busy day, make sure we have all the products! We started going live at 9 am selling boxes of new release, Bowman Chrome Universtiy Football. We anticipated being live from 9 to noonish selling boxes, then again live at 5 pm. We went live at 9 and ended at 10:30 pm! 13 1/2 hours live streaming. Wild!
At 10 am we “dropped” new release Topps Update, followed with other new releases of Bowman Chrome University and Allure Hockey. We were live for 5 hours in the evening, then had a night shift on uncommon where we were live for another 7 hours. Our Minnesota store was also live most of the time, and live in the evening on Fanatics Live!
What a long way we’ve come in this business just opening some on the side only 7 years ago. I’ve given a very quick rundown of the what, now the important part, WHY?
I am a “breaker” but my most important job is a Father. As mentioned earlier, Malix has a heart doctor appt this afternoon. Let’s give a quick recap. Malix was born on November 2, 2016. Only January 25, 2017 he a heart surgery to repair his Unbalanced AV Canal Defect, right-dominant). Read about that day here: https://malix.life/2020/03/16/the-day-the-miracle/
The surgery left Malix with a residual mitral valve stenosis. In my understanding his mitral valve in his heart could become smaller and need surgery to repair it. In our summer of 2022 check-up everything continued to look good. Something to keep an eye on, but nothing to be concerned about in the near future. “Looks good, see you next year” type of appointment.
Fast forward to October 12, 2023. There are reasons to be concerned things do not look good. Our crew is off and ripping cards and now I’m off with Michelle and Malix to Madison for this check-up. First of all, Malix is a little upset we did not stop for donuts. Come to think about it, so am I. The promise of post-appointment donuts is made and one that I will make sure we keep! We get to St. Mary Hospital in Madison right on time for our 1 pm appointment.
Walking into the appointment I’m not feeling good about how this is going to go. We get in right away and now time for the echocardiogram. If you are unfamiliar with this, it’s basically where the patient (Malix) needs to lay very still and the hospital staff takes imaging of his heart. If you know Malix, you definitely started laughing about the part he needs to be very still. Malix rocked it and sat great. The staff is confident they got great images. In his amazing sense of humor, he wanted them to take images of his belly when he drank water so he could see the water. They played along and make for some great laughs. Here this kid is, in a exam room, and we are so concerned what may not or maybe seen in these important images, so he breaks the tension with some fun of let’s see the water in my belly! Images done, now to see Dr. Rock to find results!
The Results….. going into today we hoped and prayed the results would show what they did in 2022. Everything is great, see you next year. Unfortunately this not what happened. Malix’s mitral stenosis is in fact severe. What does that mean?
Before we get into what, I find it extremely important that I am sharing our story. We have friends that, would do anything to be in the position we are in. Their stories are much different and more difficult. We pray for them and follow their journeys. The only journey I can share is one of ours and sharing it helps me and I believe spreads the message that others go through things big and small.
Ok, what does it mean. Malix has moved into the realm of needing a cardiac catheterization of the mitral value by sedated echocardiogram. Ok, what does that mean….. he will have a day at the Children’s Hospital in Madison where he is sedated. While sedated they will do a 3D echocardiogram to check his mitral valve. In this they will also check his heart of hypertension and other possible issues.
The big takeaway is that at some point Malix will show symptoms of needing this repair and he will need a surgical repair. That is now the best-case scenario. A repair is important, but a valve replacement is possibly in his future. This is assuming the echo shows no other issues.
What does it really mean? It means it’s time for DONUTS! That did not get lost on Malix, nor on me. We tried out Greenbush Bakery near Camp Randall Stadium. They were simply amazing. Malix enjoys the top portion of donuts only. On this day, this just fine with me.
Time to get back to work for me! It’s a 45 minute drive where I could sit in the back with Malix, eat donuts and check up on things at work from my phone. When I returned around 4 pm, We were still live on Fanatics Live and Uncommon. Feeling stressed out, I took the opportunity to give one of our breakers a break. I jumped in and opened a box of 2023 Topps Update for a customer.
Starting this journey in cards, opening packs brought me such balance to the issues in the real world. Today’s box did not disappoint. One of the last packs opened was a 1/1 Superfractor of Mets Rookie Pitcher Kodai Senga.
Pulling this huge card gave seemed to make all worries go away, even if it was just for a minute! Time to get back to the office and see what calls / emails I missed.
After some office prep, time to go home! It’s not everyday or often the 6 of us get to heat dinner together, but today was a nice day to do it. After dinner, bath time for Malix, then a little movie. All evening I keep a pulse on what is filling, what is breaking and any news in the card hobby. I see we are about to enter our 13th hour live on Fanatics Live and can tell our breaker needs. Jump in the car, back to the shop.
Get into the studio just at 10 pm in time to rip the last 2 boxes of the night on Fanatics Live. That’s a wrap for Fanatics Live. 13.5 hrs of constant ripping boxes! We have 2 other studios going strong for uncommon. One is ripping Hockey, the other is Update Baseball. The work and dedication we have for our team here is incredible. The real works starts on Thursday morning! We have a crew coming in to get it all sorted, packed up and shipped out!
Get in the car by 11 pm, head to to the tunes of Ed Sherran. Be asleep by Midnight, up by 6, let’s run it all back! Life is busy, life is crazy, life is happy, life can be scary, but there is no other life I’d rather have and no one else I’d rather live it with than my wife, Michelle, and our 4 kids!
Malix 