Adam Crozier
“Things I couldn’t even think about doing a year ago, I’m doing them now and enjoying life.”
— Adam Crozier
Looking back on 2020, some may remember only the things they couldn’t do. For Adam Crozier, it will be just the opposite.
He mowed his yard for the first time in two years.
He hiked with his family on summer weekends.
He spent full days on vacation without needing a rest.
He was able to finish a meal.
These are ordinary, everyday things for most people, but for Adam, they illustrate just how much his life has changed since his kidney transplant on April 24 — the day before his 41st birthday.
“I knew the second day after the transplant that things had changed, that something new was happening,” he says. “Almost immediately, I could tell a difference. I felt so good.”
For more than 13 years, Adam learned to live fully despite his chronic renal failure. When he was diagnosed, his labs were so poor, doctors recommended emergency dialysis. Through lifestyle changes and immunosuppressant drug therapy, Adam managed to delay dialysis for nearly six years. When he started in 2014, a year after being put on the transplant waiting list, he and his wife, Belinda, were trained on home dialysis so he could continue working full time. For the past several years, Adam was undergoing dialysis six days a week for three hours each day. His job as a sales manager for a shortline equipment company required travel, so Belinda went along with him to help with the dialysis, while Adam’s mom and stepdad looked after their two children, Colton and Alivia.
Alone in the hospital following his transplant, Adam had a lot of time to think. He thought about what he and his family had gone through and about the loss in another family that made his new life possible. To his donor’s family, Adam says he’ll reach out soon to say thank you.
He also has overwhelming gratitude for his own family who “made this whole process — all 13 years of it — really easy.”
“They were all in with the treatments, and ever since the transplant, they’ve been all in with any crazy thing Dad thinks we need to do because he’s got the energy now to do it. Their love and support — it’s one of the things I’m most grateful for.”
