Overview:
Mitch Grosky, a member of the Selectboard and School Committee in Athol, will undergo a kidney transplant on Tuesday, with a former student from his teaching days in Harvard acting as the donor. Grosky was diagnosed with kidney disease about two decades ago, and his wife Anne is also in Stage 4 kidney failure. He said he intends to participate in Selectboard and School Committee meetings via Zoom post-surgery, and doctors have told him that, if all goes well, he should be up and around in three months or so.
ATHOL – Selectboard and School Committee member Mitch Grosky will undergo a kidney transplant today, and the donor is someone from his days in the classroom.
Requesting to be identified only as Montana, the donor is a former elementary school student from the days when Grosky taught in the town of Harvard four decades ago. His surgery will be done at UMass/Memorial Hospital in Worcester on Tuesday, April 21, and is expected to take four hours. The surgery is being done by Dr. Babak Movahedi.
“First, I should say I’m incredibly grateful, especially grateful to my donor. Thousands of people are still waiting for kidneys. Many people never have that opportunity, and they just stay on dialysis, and a break never comes their way,” he said. “Some people have comorbidities that prevent them from ever getting a transplant. So, I feel extraordinarily lucky. At one point, I thought I might have to go on dialysis in three to five years, and dialysis, to me, almost seemed worse than death.”
Grosky refers to his donor as his “angel donor” or “hero donor.”
“She was one of the brightest, most incredible students I ever had,” he said.
In a post on his Facebook page, Grosky said, “She has gone through so many tests…on my behalf. And she is amazingly and almost unbelievably willing to give up one of her kidneys for me – to save my life. Her kindness and her generosity is absolutely overwhelming, and I sometimes feel very small next to her and unworthy. Words like ‘grateful’ or ‘thankful’ only begin to hint how I feel towards her.”
Grosky was diagnosed with kidney disease about two decades ago. His wife Anne is also in Stage 4 kidney failure, although his has progressed more quickly than hers. His doctors, he said, agreed that the cause of the disease “was likely the amount of ibuprofen I was taking for my knees. I have arthritis in both knees and at various times in my life it has been extremely painful.”
The disease, however, was not detected until Grosky experienced an allergic reaction to Bactrim, which is used to fight bacterial infections.
Grosky said this has been a very challenging time for his wife, but, “She has been incredibly supportive, being there for me every step of the way and attending all my appointments with me. She is my rock, my spiritual advisor, and her love combined with that of friends and family will get me through this.
“I really want to thank the hundreds of people who have reached out to me, either by Facebook or phone call or by a card,” he said. “The community has been incredibly supportive. I’ve heard from people I know well and people I don’t know very well at all. They’ve reached out with their prayers and their well-wishes.”
Post-surgery, he said, “My son Joshua and my daughter Mariah, who have also been really supportive, will be here to help and support me and Anne for the first week or two.”
Grosky said he intends to participate in Selectboard and School Committee meetings via Zoom. Doctors, he said, have told him that, if all goes well, he should be up and around in three months or so. Even then, Grosky will be subject to regular medical tests, the need to watch his diet, wear a mask in public and take up to 20 pills a day.
“But I’ll be alive,” he said, “and that’s the important thing.”