‘Go see your doctor’: Utah Jazz GM to undergo kidney transplant for genetic disease
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — The Utah Jazz community is rallying behind the team’s general manager as he prepares for the next step to fight off a deadly genetic disorder.
Justin Zanik, who has served as the team’s general manager since 2019, will go under the knife for a kidney transplant on Tuesday, April 2. The transplant is to address PKD, or polycystic kidney disease, a genetic disorder that affects kidney functions and could lead to kidney failure — which Zanik said he was already in.
“I did a physical. Everything was really really good except for one thing. My kidney function was at 14 percent,” said Zanik in a video posted to the team’s social media channels. “That is technically kidney failure.”
Zanik said leading up to the diagnosis he felt fine and the same as always. The PKD surprised both him and the doctors as he didn’t feel like there was anything wrong. His wife, Gina, however, noticed a difference.
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“My wife had been telling me over this past summer that she thought I was more tired,” Zanik said in the video. “I said, ‘Of course, I’m tired. I’m an NBA general manager and I’ve been across the Pacific twice and flown 25,000 miles over the period of three weeks.'”
PKD can cause several problems and impacts about one in every 500,000 people in the United States. Those with PKD can live with pain and high blood pressure and, left unchecked, could cause problems with the liver and blood vessels in the brain and heart.
In most cases, PKD is genetic — passed on to children from a parent. Zanik explained he was diagnosed with PKD over two decades ago, so he knew it was something that he would have to confront sooner or later. He explained that his dad also got a transplant to treat PKD and now he is living a healthy life and is doing great.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski said Zanik’s wife and three children have also tested positive for PKD but don’t have any treatments as of now.
Still, even knowing it was possible didn’t make the diagnosis any easier for Zanik.
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“In my job and in my career I’ve always been a fixer. I’ve always been the one that helps fix everything else and support,” Zanik explained. “So, it was hard for me at the beginning to talk about me needing to be fixed and needing help.”
He explained that once he did finally open up, the support from those closest to him and the Jazz community was “humbling.” He said there were a lot of people around him, including some he didn’t expect, saying they would go get tested to see if they were a compatible match for the kidney transplant.
Overall, Zanik said the experience has taught him the importance of getting checked by a doctor, especially as you get older.
“Go see your doctor. Go see them once a year. It’s a pain sometimes. We’re all busy. We have family and we have kids and we have our careers. Sometimes it’s easy to just put that to the side about our own health especially if we feel OK,” said Zanik in the video. “The best thing you can do to take care of yourself is to have someone take a look. Do it once a year.”
Zanik said the transplant was something he wanted to do from the start and the timing for the procedure could not be better. Zanik said he will be “kicked out” of the hospital three to four days after the procedure. Doctors told him he should be able to return to work about three weeks later.
“We’re about to finish the season. We will have exit interviews and other things that I’ve basically been doing a little bit earlier this year and then I’ll be back before the [NBA draft] combine,” said Zanik. “So this kind of month between the end of the season and when we start our pre-draft process is a perfect time for me to recover and come back, start watching workouts and be part of the group.”
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