She hated her 5th-grade teacher until then she saw his Facebook plea after a 7-year kidney wait

10-year-old Montana Miller and her teacher, Mitchell Grosky, were sworn enemies. Miller hated her because she found his assignments too easy, and every other day, they butted their heads in epic battles, as reported by The New York Post. Grosky remained her teacher throughout her high school, and the battle continued until only recently. The Long Island woman, now 55 years old, came to know from his August 2025 Facebook post that he was desperately searching for a kidney donor. Suddenly, all her hatred for him melted, and she decided to donate her kidney on April 21, 2026.

A desperate plea

In his Facebook post, Grosky explained that a kidney transplant is usually required when the kidney function falls to 15% or less. His function had slumped to 20%, and according to the system, he would have to wait seven years before getting a transplant. “The only way you can get a kidney earlier than that is if you have a volunteer donor who has personally offered a kidney to you,” he explained.

From enemies to friends

On the other side, Miller, now a trapeze artist and skeleton athlete, who got a PhD in folklore and mythology from UCLA, knew that she had a body robust enough to be the donor. Ever since she got into extreme sports, she has loved doing scary things. “The thing that I am best at doing is the things that I am terrified about,” she shared with the "Living Off Script" podcast. In conversation with The Boston Globe, she confessed, “I wanted to help Mitch so badly that it became almost painful.” Despite being childhood enemies, she was developing empathy for her teacher.

She met a changed man

“I absolutely could not stand him,” she recalled. In 2012, when the two reconnected on Facebook, a new relationship manifested between the two. After retirement, Grosky was working on several causes and passions that interested her, including photography. He had changed a lot, and she thought, “he’s obviously not a jerk anymore.” She even recounted how he took massive doses of ibuprofen during her school days, which made him sweat a lot, and which probably became a reason for his kidney disease.

'Deeply healing experience'

Miller applied as a volunteer to donate her kidney, and although their blood groups didn’t match, she was healthy enough to donate it. Despite pushing her body to the extreme in the past few years, she was “tissue compatible” with Grosky, a very rare and unusual match for people who aren’t related, she revealed in the podcast. On April 21, the kidney transplant surgery was conducted while both were admitted to adjoining operating rooms at the UMass Memorial Medical Center. Grosky praised Miller as his “most brilliant, most creative student” he has ever had. 

Not all donors donate

The woman, on the other hand, confessed that the pride she felt for who she was and who she became has been deeply healing for her. According to the Kidney Medicine Journal, 31.1% of the public is currently registered as donors, but only 15.6% thought about donating kidneys. 78.7% would donate only if the recipient was their own family member. For Miller, however, her fifth-grade teacher wasn't much different from the family.

'Pain is a privilege'

“The pain I’m going through now is definitely not more than I can handle,” Miller told the Globe. “Just like high diving, flying trapeze, skydiving, and skeleton racing, kidney donation was for me an opportunity and a responsibility to use to their fullest extent the physical gifts I was lucky enough to be given,” she said.

At present, both the student and the teacher are “painfully but positively” on the road to recovery. For the next three months, Miller cannot participate in any strenuous physical exercise, including intensive training, lifting, or driving. But as the duo recovers, they heal their collective past and pave the way for newer, more connected memories in the future.

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