Vanessa Grubbs

not tax day

You would think that after 20 years, I would remember the exact date I gave away my left kidney. But again this year, Robert Phillips, my hubby and recipient of said kidney reminded me, that it was April 14 and not the Tax Day April 15 date that I’ve had stuck in my mind. Even then, I still looked it up in my book to confirm. Bless my heart.

So, yesterday, April 14, 2025, we celebrated our 20th transplant anniversary. I was hoping we would get the nearly 60 years The Other Robert Phillips got from his before dying of something unrelated, but it doesn’t appear we will be so fortunate. Robert’s kidney function (estimated glomerular filtration rate, eGFR) has decreased to about 20 ml/min and he is now eligible for kidney transplant wait listing. Again.

But this time is different than the first time around. This time, Robert knows that he can be on the wait list at an eGFR of 20. The first time, Robert wasn’t referred for transplant evaluation until he had already been on dialysis for a year, even though he had been under the care of a nephrologist for over a decade. And even then it was because he asked his nephrologist about the option.

This time, Robert knows (and has the financial means) to be strategic. He has reviewed the average time to transplant and quality metrics at transplant centers around the country. He will get listed at three or four of the best programs with average wait of two years. Where we live, the wait is at least eight years for his blood type. We probably have two years of good pee with his current kidney, but maybe not eight—which matters because Robert has said repeatedly that he will not do chronic dialysis again. He did it for nearly six years. I have to respect a declaration formed by his lived experience.

I just wish I had another spare kidney to give him. But in the meantime, we are 20 years and counting!



the kidney biopsy: old vs new(ish) school

Long before anyone asked the Make America Great Again crowd to pinpoint exactly when America was great if you were Black, I heard a White stand-up comedian joke about how he could pretty much go back to any time in history and be ok, and acknowledged a Black person would not be ok. Hell, we’re still not ok.

 

But when I think about medicine, no one could go back in time and expect to be better off. And not just from the discovery of antibiotics or anesthesia perspective—from all the perspectives!

so you think you want to stop dialysis?

After recording my latest YouTube video for the fifty-leventh time before getting a usable version, I realized I didn’t answer the question posed by the inspiration email. In the video, I talk about how to bring up the notion of stopping dialysis to the nephrologist, but the writer was asking how to bring it up to their sister on dialysis. Anyone familiar with the vernacular “fifty-leventh” knows that means I did not have it in me to do even one more take. But I can address their question here.