Maybe I spoke too soon. Maybe I spoke without thinking. Maybe I spoke just to fill the air with words—not to truly communicate. In June, I posted on social media about how great life was going, how fantastic the year had been, how if it ended that day, it would still count as a success. All the while, I knew that wasn’t quite true.
I started feeling off in January. I messaged my transplant team right away to ask if it was time to worry about my declining kidney health. They saw no reason for concern, so I went about my merry way.
In April, routine bloodwork showed my kidney function had dropped. But since the transplant team still wasn’t worried, I decided I wouldn’t be either. By June, though, the numbers—my eGFR, or estimated glomerular filtration rate—had fallen further still.
Since my transplant in 2023, that number had hovered between 30 and 40, placing me in stage 3 chronic kidney disease. No one had said a word about it.
By June of 2026, it had dropped to 25—a quarter of my kidney function left.
At a routine visit that month, my primary care physician finally filled me in: I now had stage 4 kidney disease, and it was time to see a nephrologist.
I didn’t wait long. In July, I met a kind nephrologist who looked at me with sympathy and said, “There’s nothing I can do for you. You’ll need a kidney transplant. Let me know when your GFR drops below 20, and I’ll refer you to the transplant team.”
Since then, the number has bounced between 18 and 27 and back again. The reality of what comes next sits on my mind like an imposing stone—I can’t move it, only choose not to look at it.
I’m counting down the days, weeks, months until I open up and say it out loud: here I am again, asking for the generous donation of a vital organ.
How many times will I be the one in need—the helped, not the helper? It doesn’t feel good, being on this side. I’m forever grateful, but it will never sit completely right with me that I’m only here, living this life, because someone else isn’t.
Just today, Aaron and I were talking about how we go through life holding measuring sticks—marking time, growth, performance, even worth. Those rulers get placed in our hands early. Think about it: at five years old, we’re already asking children what they want to be when they grow up, as if to draw a starting line and see how far they’ll go.
We talked about how real maturity means laying those rulers down and letting life—not just yours, but everyone else’s—be lived. We’re here to learn, not to keep score. If we’re always measuring each other, how do we build anything real between us? If we’re always measuring the moment, how do we ever actually experience it?
Maybe that’s the lesson hiding inside all these numbers—the eGFR that climbs and drops, the miles I try, and fail, and try again to run, the years I keep tallying against someone else’s gift. I can’t measure my way into peace with any of this. I can only live it—today’s version, imperfect and uncertain, without waiting for a number to give me permission. So I’ll put down the ruler, at least for now. At least I’ll try. It’s a hard thing to let go of, something handed to you so early in life.
Gratitude and grief can share the same breath. I don’t have to pretend the fear isn’t there to still believe help will come again, the way it has before. So I’ll keep watching the numbers, but I’ll also keep living the good, real parts of this year—the parts I wasn’t lying about in June. And when the time comes to ask again, I’ll ask. Not because I’ve earned it, but because that’s what it means to still be here: still hoping, still human enough to need other people.
Witness Marks 