Before kidney failure was a daily challenge, I thought I had a sense of what qualified as a big deal. Looking back, it is almost funny how small those worries really were, the kind that only thrive when life is still uncomplicated.
There was a time when I believed every restaurant in America was part of a secret group chat on WhatsApp dedicated to messing up my orders. Not just the occasional mistake. This felt like a coordinated culinary cabal. Somewhere out there was a chat thread titled “Let’s All Ruin Chad’s Order,” and every restaurant from the drive-through to the diner was chiming in, doing their part.
“He ordered no mustard.” “Perfect. Extra mustard it is.”
“He asked for an extra side of coleslaw.” “Don’t even put it in the sack.”
“He asked for medium-rare.” “Burn it.”
“He asked for Coke Zero.” “Give him a Diet Coke.”
I would stare at my plate as if it were evidence in a case only I cared about. Sigh dramatically. Poke at the wrong side dish. Rehearse a speech about customer service I would never actually give, because deep down I knew the server had done nothing wrong and my tongue cannot stand the taste of mustard.
Meanwhile, my kidneys were in the background, waving warning flags. “Human, you have bigger things coming.” But I had not heard them yet. I was too busy filing my internal complaint with the Department of Unnecessary Mustard Placement, which existed only in my imagination but felt very official at the time. Looking back, it is almost endearing how convinced I was that the universe cared about my special condiment requests.
The old Chad used to treat my phone like a mood ring that also controlled my self-worth. Too many notifications felt overwhelming. Not enough was concerning. A delayed text was the equivalent of relational collapse. Someone not texting back fast enough might be a character flaw worth discussing at length. (Yes, I am an overthinker.) I once refreshed my messages so many times, I am convinced my phone considered filing a restraining order against my thumbs.
And the battery. Below 20 percent, I became a survivalist preparing for the digital apocalypse. The frantic scramble for the charger. The rising panic that the one important call of my life would arrive at exactly 10 percent. I treated the battery icon like a countdown timer on a device far more dramatic than an everyday smartphone.
Even after my kidney transplant was over, the so-called minor inconveniences resumed. But they were less of a big deal. A flight was boarded, then un-boarded because of a system failure, and that one hiccup would have caused me to miss my connecting flight in Chicago by an hour. It still felt like a coordinated attack from the airline, the plane, the gate agent who had just clocked in, and of course, those Wright brothers. It was the inconvenience that could have unraveled an entire afternoon, especially when paired with a dying phone battery or unanswered texts.
These used to be the big deals I clung to, a rotating cast of tiny crises that felt enormous in the moment. Some were petty. Some were dramatic. All of them felt urgent. And they carried me to the moment life handed me an actual crisis, one that did not care about mustard, notifications, or boarding groups.
My kidney function was heading in the wrong direction because of diabetes, hereditary factors, and high blood pressure. Knowing something is statistically possible does not soften the blow when it becomes real. It is one thing to read about kidney risk factors. It is another thing to see them printed next to your name.
I held the diagnosis privately for months, rehearsing the words in my mind. My kidneys are failing. I will need dialysis. I will eventually need a transplant. Each time I tried to say them out loud, my voice faltered. As if not speaking the words kept them from being real. But ready or not, the chronic kidney disease chapter had already begun.
First came the fatigue that does not care how much you slept. Then the labs. Then the specialists. Then the waiting. Always with the waiting. You refresh your patient portal as if it might come with an apology, saying they mixed up my results with someone else’s and my kidneys are just fine. But when the apology never displays, you learn new numbers. Generate new fears. Expand your list of things to pray for.
The coffee can go cold. The lines can be long. The notifications can go unanswered. None of it matters when your body is asking for help in a language you do not understand. I had bigger things to carry. Other things to prioritize.
Kidney failure does not make me a saint or a want-to-be martyr. It made me pay attention. It taught me to notice the small mercies, the slow breaths, the shifts that mark a life being rebuilt. It was not some grand transformation; it felt more like learning to interpret a new set of signals, the way I had learned the difference between the soft hum of the dialysis cycler and the sharp alarm that meant something needed attention. My life had its own alarms now, subtle ones, the kind you only recognize after months of listening.
These days, the big deals look different.
The barista can write the wrong name on my cup (I’m Chad, not Chuck) without it feeling like a personal slight, and the parking spot can go to someone else without derailing my mood. The forecast can be off, the package can arrive late, and the pen can run dry. Even the neighbor’s dog can bark, or the buffering circle can spin while I wait for a show to load. The mustard can be sort of scraped off, and life keeps moving. What once felt like a string of daily catastrophes now lands more like background noise, small things that barely register compared to what I have lived through.
Some things really are a big deal. These minor inconveniences I experienced were not among them.
Being able to receive a kidney from a living donor, that is a big deal.
But in the end, each of us is facing our own battles, so be nice to everyone. You do not know what battles or how many battles they are facing at that exact moment that are a huge deal in their life.
Prayers for strength…one day at a time….even one hour, IF that’s what is required ! And yes, the rear view mirror can reflect a good lesson that we just might have missed while we were IN our forest. In my old age, I have come to appreciate my life as a tapestry! I can only see the “blurry” side. God sees every detail !