It’s hard to narrow down what I consider to be my favorite anything, but there is one show that has helped me cope with chronic kidney disease. I wrestled a little with this decision because it almost sounded cliché. In the end, the answer was clear. Grey’s Anatomy was indeed the show that helped me navigate life with kidney disease.
For those who have been living under a rock for nearly twenty years, Grey’s Anatomy is a medical drama which provides a closer look into what it is to be a resident, surgical intern, and attending both in and outside of the hospital. I was late to Grey’s fandom, having started watching out of boredom one night in 2016, but I was quickly hooked.
Combine attractive doctors with the drama on and off the operating table, and you have a recipe—or maybe a prescription—for a great show. Seeing all the sick people coming in and out of the hospital, along with people who had kidney disease, made me strangely feel a sense of normalcy.
Having been diagnosed with kidney disease at the age of 25, I felt like an outcast. My friends from college and family members were leading normal lives. They couldn’t relate to the weekly doctor’s appointments, bloodwork, or dialysis treatments. Starting on dialysis at that young age I almost felt isolated. I was even the youngest person at my center at the time, so I didn’t have many people my age to talk to.
When I watched Grey’s, I saw people I could relate to. I could relate to the character who was itching to get out of the hospital after an extended stay who longed for the doctor to tell them they were being discharged. I sympathized with the patient who sometimes wanted to give up and just wanted one moment for their life to go back to normal. On these days, I cried with the characters on the show because I knew it was what I wanted for myself. Then there were the days when I cheered for the patient finally receiving a transplant after a long wait, knowing that I, too, wanted that for myself.
It was here that I got a basic understanding of what happens when you receive a transplant. Sometimes as a dialysis patient, a transplant is glamorized or deemed something like the Superbowl of kidney disease. It is the goal when you’re on dialysis. It is as if all your problems will disappear once you’re transplanted, but that’s not true. There is the constant worry of rejection, the laundry list of prescriptions needed to keep that kidney from being rejected, and constant visits to the doctor. I saw all this depicted on the show, and while it all seemed daunting, it was also enlightening.
After dealing with all the heaviness and the drama on the show and in my actual life, I had something of a realization. I didn’t have to let kidney disease run my life or become my entire personality. I could still live a life of normalcy; it would just have to be a new normal. My new normal was going to dialysis three times a week, but after dialysis, I could still do the things that I would normally do. I can still spend time with my mom and my fur baby Papi, cook, and do anything else I thought I couldn’t do before.
When I watched the show, I realized that while I was dealing with serious problems, there were other people in the real world having to cope with a multitude of health problems that left them unable to live normal lives. A normal life that you and I may take for granted.
As I get older, I learn to appreciate the simple things in life. I enjoy spending time with the people who matter most to me. I enjoy cooking and I’m grateful that I can do so because there were times when I was too weak to even walk down the steps into the kitchen. Lastly, I still enjoy binge-watching the latest season of Grey’s once it hits Netflix. The series has shown me that I’m not alone, and even though the show is fictionalized, it depicts what it’s like having to adjust to a new normal. I’m grateful for what the show has taught me about the practice of medicine, and myself.
Lea la versión en español de este ensayo aquí.
Listen to the audio version of Prescribed by Grey’s, read by the author Stacey Moore:
My name Stacey Moore, and I’m 32 years old. I’m from Baltimore, Maryland. I’ve been a dialysis patient since I was 25 years old. I also have t-cell lymphoma, but these two things don’t stop me. I have a bachelors of science in psychology, and a master’s in forensic studies both from Stevenson University. I’m an only child, and the best dog mom to my 8 year old Shih Tzu , Papí Chulo. My favorite thing to do is cook, and binge watch bad tv with my mom. I’m hoping to go back to school in the near future to work in the mental health field, and help people who are dealing with chronic kidney disease and cancer.
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