When Chris Harris found out his kidneys were failing, it felt like his world came crashing down.

Harris was 26 years old when he started to feel incredibly sick. He was working as an assistant store manager at Walgreens and was enrolled in school to get a culinary degree.

When Harris realized he no longer had the strength to take care of himself or spend time with loved ones, he checked himself into the emergency room. That’s where he learned his kidneys were failing and he would need dialysis, starting the very next day.

“I was extremely panicked when I heard my diagnosis,” Harris says. “When the doctor left the room, I decided to look up what dialysis was. You can only imagine what ended up happening.”

The research rabbit hole Harris fell down did nothing to ease the stress and emotion of his diagnosis as he focused on life expectancies and complications associated with end stage kidney disease. He became increasingly frustrated, and he describes conversations he had with the nephrologist in the hospital as a blur as he struggled to understand his health needs.

“I don't think I was in the right mindset to actually hear what [the nephrologist] was saying,” Harris says. “He was talking to me, but it was actually like he was talking to a wall because I was so overwhelmed with the news.”

35.5 million U.S. adults are estimated to have chronic kidney disease (CKD), but it is too often that — similar to Harris’s experience — patients find out their kidneys are failing when they require transplant or dialysis, without time for proper planning or preparation.

A few days after Harris’s first dialysis treatment in the hospital, he transitioned to receive care at a DaVita dialysis center. Chris, feeling defeated and frightened by his new reality, had no idea what to expect.

“I remember my first day in the center, the charge nurse at the time could instantly tell I was nervous. She said the first thing she wanted me to know is that the team was going to take care of me,” Harris says.

Harris quickly felt a connection with the clinicians who treated him at DaVita, which helped him adjust to his new diagnosis and dialysis schedule. Harris remembers his care team providing him with education during his treatments as well as pamphlets and materials for him to go over at home. The continued education, he says, helped him better understand his health needs as he continued to adjust to his new diagnosis and treatment schedule.

“Chris was extremely nervous to start treatment at DaVita, but he quickly became comfortable with the nurses and the staff,” says Jovan Kolevski, Harris’s partner.

Finding comfort from the care he received, Chris continued to appreciate the connection he experienced with everyone at the DaVita center. Whether it was teammates (DaVita employees) finding the right resources to support someone’s needs or the facility administrator taking time to check in with people during treatments, Chris felt inspired: “I wanted to be a part of that.”

Knowing that his experience could serve to help others, Chris decided to become a DaVita teammate himself. He started out as a patient care technician, working with patients as they received treatments and providing them with the same level of care and support, he appreciated when he had first started dialysis. Over the past six years, Chris has continued his own kidney care journey — transitioning from in-center hemodialysis to home dialysis, to now living with a kidney transplant — while also helping others. Today, Chris works for the CKD education program Kidney Smart® as an educator and coordinator.

Remembering the sense of overwhelm he experienced when he first learned he had ESKD, Chris seeks to empower people early in their kidney care journeys to better understand their health, their needs and their treatment options.

“My experience at DaVita helped me turn a dark time into something positive. Today, I leverage the care that I received as a patient and bring it to my role as a teammate,” Harris says. “To me, that experience reflected my care team treating me like a human and wanting the absolute best for my life.”