Hilary Golston needs a kidney, but she doesn't know how to ask.
It's not for her. It's for her mother. And as a reporter and weekend anchor at WJBK-TV (Channel 2), she holds a powerful bullhorn.
"But that's my professional side," Golston says. "This is personal. I don't want to misuse the pulpit."
You can make a case, and so far she has, that it's crossing a line to take advantage of her job to plead for her mother's life from the news desk. Beyond that, while Denise Gray-Boddie's situation is perilous, she's still blessed with an unspecified amount of time and an unlimited supply of hope.
There's no doubt, though, that Gray-Boddie's typical approach to problems — pulverize them through sheer willpower — won't work here.
No doubt that she has led the sort of life that begs, at age 75, to be continued, where a poor kid from southwest Detroit becomes a pioneering physician who becomes a guide for others who tug the next generation along.
No doubt that organ donation is a splendid thing, that Michigan needs more donors, that people need to be reminded how easy it is to put yourself on the potential donor list or even check to see whether you're a good match for a bit of living generosity.
So, from Golston: "I'm hoping somebody says, 'This is a healer who needs to be healed.' "
And, from her mom: "When I make it, not if, I will be so grateful to know there was somebody out there who gave me life. That's all I ever wanted to do, was be available to people to make a difference and give somebody life."
Priorities and problems
Gray-Boddie has lived for decades in North Rosedale Park, in a nice house that would fit comfortably in the suburban backyards of many of her former colleagues in radiology at Detroit Receiving Hospital.
She had a lift installed Friday to connect her with an existing lift, the better to reach the room where she plans to start administering her own peritoneal dialysis four times a day next month.
Tussling with spinal and hip issues alongside the renal problems, Gray-Boddie needs canes or a walker to take the limited number of steps she can muster before resting. She still drives, however — a GMC Terrain, the latest in a long series of practical used cars for someone who preferred to spend her money on her four kids' tuition.
Her own education came at Southwestern High and Wayne State University. Her dad was a bricklayer and her mom a house cleaner, and they had no firmer grasp on how to send her to college than how to send her to Mars.
Gray-Boddie figured it out. She had her second child during medical school, wound up the chief resident and couldn't get a job with a major metro Detroit hospital even while white doctors she supervised did.
Ultimately, she worked her way to Detroit Medical Center, where she began her career as one of the few Black radiologists in the country and microscopically few Black female radiologists.
She can't explain what ignited her ambition, but "I was feisty," she says, choosing a word only a feisty character would. "I couldn't let it go, even though there was nobody to — What would you say? — guide me."
Having ascended, she says, she was determined to help others up the ladder, and still is, after a decade of retirement.
Also, she'd like to finish her memoir, learn margin trading and get a hip replacement, which leaves her with no time or patience for kidney failure.
More than 2,000 Michiganders await kidney transplants
Gray-Boddie's age, genetics, diabetes and hypertension make her best served by what's known as a living donation, transplanted directly from a volunteer or arranged as part of a paired kidney process involving two donors and two recipients.
Family members have been tested, Golston says, and aren't a proper match. Anyone else inclined to try can call the University of Michigan Living Donor Office at 800-333-9013 to see whether their potential donation sounds promising.
The conduit for most transplants in the state is Gift of Life Michigan, which coordinates organs from deceased donors and reports a 25% increase in transplants during 2023.
There were 1,372 organs involved, says CEO Dorrie Dils, from 578 donors. The tally for kidneys was 744, up from 542 the previous year.
That’s encouraging, Dils says, but 2,400 Michiganders remain on the transplant list, with more than 2,000 of them awaiting a kidney.
There’s no cost for donors or their heirs to register or give. Some 58% of adults in Michigan are in the registry, and if there’s a little red heart in a corner on your driver’s license or state I.D., you’re among them.
As the population ages, Dils says, so does the donor base. A few months ago, a 98-year-old passed along his liver, a lovely parting gift indeed.
Hanging onto hope, but no luck so far
Golston launched her television career after majoring in political science at George Washington University. Her first reporting job was in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and her mother would periodically drive there after her shift at the hospital, just to be a familiar face and do the laundry.
After Green Bay came Birmingham, Alabama, and Cleveland before a spot opened up at Fox2 six years ago.
She has covered murders and pets of the week and everything in between, and "I've helped people get kidneys. I remember one woman who needed a transplant after she'd adopted a bunch of children. You never know."
A few months ago, Golston and her two surviving siblings bought a billboard, hoping someone zipping along Interstate 75 might be moved to call U-M. No luck. They've established a website, supportdenise.org, but no response has been promising enough to prompt an alert from the transplant center.
It's a sizable request, asking a stranger to bless someone with an organ. If nothing else, Golston says, maybe the hospital will inadvertently find a match that helps somebody else.
That's not the story she's hoping for, but it's one she could report, with no guilt and a good bit of pride.
Neal Rubin has been on the donor registry for ages, and loves the notion of the corneas from his C-minus eyes helping someone regain their vision. Reach him at NARubin@freepress.com.
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