by Mikaela Boyer

When you think of a doctor becoming a patient, it’s kind of like day and night, complete opposites. Doctors go to school for a long time studying medicine and become very powerful compared to vulnerable patients who need help. My grandfather had to switch places from being a general surgeon, to being a patient with kidney failure. My grandfather is someone who would never allow an illness to change the person he was or how he lived his life. Being the knowledgeable health freak he is, you would never imagine him to be someone with a life threatening illness either. By being knowledgeable, my grandfather took matters into his own hands when he started to notice a few symptoms that he considered to be “getting old.”

He told me, “I started to feel more tired than normal every day, no matter how much sleep I got. I didn’t feel hungry as much as I normally did which was weird and concerned Nana and I the most. Looking back now, I feel as though I tried to ignore certain symptoms to deny the fact that there was a possibility I was developing an illness. These symptoms went on for a few months and I didn’t think anything serious of it until those same symptoms started to worsen by days and that’s when I knew it was time to be seen by a professional and figure out what was going on.”

My grandmother went with him to the doctors to get looked at and they ended up taking blood and running a few tests. The doctor told them that they would look at the results and call my grandparents as soon as they figured out what was going on. About three days later, my grandfather received a call around 9am from the doctor wanting him to come back in as soon as he could so they could discuss the results in person.

My grandfather said, “I knew it wasn’t good because if it’s bad enough that you can’t say it over the phone, it’s bad.”

When he arrived at the doctor’s office that afternoon, the doctor told him that he was developing kidney failure and both his kidneys were becoming non-functioning very quickly. They started to discuss the plans for what the next steps were, but my grandfather remembers hearing none of it.

“I waited for nana to get home to tell her because I knew it would’ve ruined her day at work if I called her,” he told me.

When my grandfather told her, she didn’t believe him at first. Like himself, she didn’t understand how someone who never drank and never smoked cigarettes had kidneys that weren’t functionally correctly anymore at the age of 62.

My grandparents decided to have my mother, my aunt and my uncle all over for dinner without any of their kids so that they could sit down and explain everything to them. They explained that my grandmother was going to be tested to see if she was a positive match to be his kidney donor. The minute they told them, my mom jumped in and decided she wanted to be tested as well to see if she was a match to be his kidney donor in case my grandmother wasn’t. She called her doctors office the next day to get blood work and tests done and send the results off to see if she was positive match. When they both got the results back about a week later, it turned out that they were both a match to be donors.

They immediately started to do research on hospitals around the area that had a good reputation on kidney transplants. My grandparents decided to look into Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine and Dartmouth-Hitchcock in New Hampshire. Although we live in New Hampshire, Maine Medical was closer to us than Dartmouth was. My grandparents and mother visited Maine Medical about a week later because it was closer to where they live, but they didn’t end up liking how the hospital worked.

My grandfather told me, “We were told that we would never really see the same doctor more than a few times while preparing for the transplant. I wanted to be able to see the same few doctors so that they were always updated on what was going on and I didn’t have to re-explain everything at every appointment.”

When they visited Dartmouth-Hitchcock about a week later, they got a great first impression and decided they liked it a lot. My grandmother and mom met with the “donor team” that consisted of four different doctors that would only meet with them from start to finish. My grandfather met with the “recipient team” that consisted of 3 doctors who only focused on people receiving kidneys. They enjoyed this set up a lot because they got to know the doctors in their team really well and they were well experienced in that field.

My grandfather had a really hard time deciding who he felt more comfortable being the donor of the kidney. He didn’t want my mom to feel like she had to give up something so valuable to her father because no parent wants to feel like their child needs to “save” them or take care of them in that way. My grandmother and mom decided to have a meeting with one of the donor doctors to discuss who would be a better match overall to donate their kidney. After looking into the health risks that my mom would face at being only thirty-eight-years-old giving up her kidney, they came to the conclusion that my grandmother would be a better match. Although my mom was disappointed at first that she couldn’t help my grandfather in that way, she was happy that my grandmother got that opportunity.

Since my mom planned on donating her kidney at first, she already got the time off from work approved. Instead of giving it back, she decided that she was going to use the vacation to take care of my grandparents after the surgery and stay with them and take them to all their appointments.

When I asked my grandfather what he liked the most about his doctor, he said, “He wanted to know about me and my life, not just about my kidney. We had days that we just talked about whatever I wanted to, and he never rushed me back into the topic of my kidney. He knew that I was a doctor and I already knew what information was important to tell him, but he also knew that I was a doctor who was now a patient, and how hard it is to switch places like that. He knew that outside of being a doctor or a patient, they are still people that have lives other than their medical records.”

From discussing this with my grandfather, I believe that this is important to every patient. I feel as though patients often feel like a burden when they ask questions and talk more than five minutes with their doctor, which is not how they should feel. Patients need to feel like their doctor cares about more than just their medical records or illness. Being able to have a relationship with your patient in a way that you can talk about other things in their life that might be bothering them is extremely important.

I don’t think that enough patients feel comfortable enough with their doctors to talk to them about other things that might have to do with their illness they are being seen for. When you go to the doctors, you are always asked the same standard list of questions that you need to answer before the doctor diagnoses you and prescribes you the medication or actions that you have to do to get better. If doctors were able to be more personable and be given more time with each patient then I think they would find that there would be less misdiagnosis because they would have more time to talk and listen, resulting in a lesser chance to miss an important detail.

On October 5, 2016, my grandmother successfully donated her kidney to my grandfather. Being able to do this has created a bond between them that will never be broken. After almost two years later, my grandfather still talks to his doctors whenever he has a question or a concern.

He has had to adapt to a lot of different lifestyle habits that have been difficult. My grandmother loves to cook and we love trying her new recipes, but she has to cook a lot different now because of my grandfathers strict eating habits. She no longer cooks with any salt and she is very cautious of the ingredients she puts in because some can increase my grandfather’s body levels and harm his new kidney. He used to come to all of the grandchildren’s school and sporting events, but the past year and a half he has had to be very cautious around people because of how weak his immune system is. Having this life changing experience, he has looked at things differently since receiving a new kidney. He always watches what we eat and warns us of the risks of putting certain things in our body.

He says if he learned one thing, it is “Never take anything for granted. If you do good, you will receive good. I had a rough few months during that illness, but I have the best story to tell all of you grandchildren now and anyone else I meet, something great always comes out of the bad.” I believe that this experience has not only changed him as a person and the way he looks at life, but if he would have been a different doctor if he hadn’t retired after the surgery. He says that if he did end up going back to work, he wouldn’t consider so many people as “difficult patients.” As a doctor he knew so much information about medical situations that when a patient came in thinking their minor illness was the end of the world, he would think that they were overreacting. After being the patient and realizing that when you are put in that position of just wanting to be saved by the doctor, your illness to you is the biggest crisis you have in that moment. If every doctor was able to experience being put in this position while they were going to school to be a doctor, they would understand certain perspectives more and be more willing to listen to what the patient has to say and therefore become better empathetic doctors.