Sergeant Grant Pigott hasn’t let serious illness stop him doing the job he loves, and neither has his boss.
Grant suffers from the progressive disease Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) which has seen his kidney function deteriorate to the point where he faces dialysis within 12-18 months unless he can find a donor.
“It’s a bit of a rubbish hand but I just have to deal with it,” he says.
It’s not a condition which shows outwardly so until now he has been able to keep it quiet.
His major symptom is fatigue so he requested to come off shiftwork with the Public Safety Team and is now working nine-to-five relieving as response manager. Then it will be into another day job in workplace assessment and recruitment – the type of work he likes to do anyway.
But a recent specialist appointment revealed that he would soon fall under the 15 percent function threshold which would tip him into requiring dialysis.
That’s not compatible with the police work he’s done and loved for the past 22 years and now he is going public in the hope of finding a kidney donor.
“I don’t want to sound too cheesy or needy. It’s just about putting it out there,” he says.
“If you don’t ask you don’t get.”
He can’t speak highly enough of the support he’s had from colleagues and the boss, Tairawhiti Area Commander Inspector Sam Aberahama.
Sam says he wants to do everything he can to enable Grant to keep working.
“He wants to continue to serve his communities and I want to do everything I can to enable him to continue to serve,” he says.
“He’s so passionate about the communities in Wairoa and Gisborne where he’s worked - I just want to make sure that myself and the police whānau do everything we can to support him to do the mahi.”
He endorses Grant’s decision to go public, noting that Police is a proactive organisation and focused on prevention. “We truly care about our people.
“If we don’t know then we can’t help. If you ask – who knows? There are people out there – it just takes a certain type.”
Grant says all offers are welcome, but he’s realistic about the chances of finding a match – sadly not an option within his immediate family – and the timeframe. It takes a good year to go through the necessary testing and consent, and chances of a transplant ‘taking’ are better if it’s pre-dialysis.
So he’s seizing the moment, planning to head to Bali in January then across the United States in March. Apart from the illness, life is going really well. And right now, he says, “I'm just waiting to get on that plane.”
- If you are considering becoming a donor, contact Live Kidney Donation Aotearoa on 0800 5483 3666. You can find out more at https://kidneydonor.org.nz/.
- Potential donors need to be healthy (with no diabetes or blood pressure problems and no history of cancer) and have blood type ‘O’.