Kidney Transplant Inspirational Quotes

I encourage readers recovering from a kidney transplant to heed the advice of their medical practitioners.

The sick suffer alone, they undergo procedures and surgeries alone, and in the end, they die alone. Transplant is different. Transplant is all about having someone else join you in your illness. It may be in the form of an organ from a recently deceased donor, a selfless gift given by someone has never met you, or a kidney or liver from a relative, friend or acquaintance. In every case, someone is saying, in effect, “Let me join you in the recovery, your suffering, your fear of the unknown, your desire to become healthy, to get your life back. Let me bear some of your risk with you.

Rather, I was fascinated with how going through the process of becoming Robert's kidney donor gave me a glimpse of the kidney transplant system that being a primary care doctor did not provide. Though at the time I was working on research projects on the effects of language barriers on health outcomes, my experience with Robert inspired me to change my research focus to what made some people more likely to get a kidney transplant than others. Donating my own kidney was my solution for Robert. I saw research as the way to help other people like him.