A Kidney For Murph: Toms River Man's Donor Plea Draws 8 Offers

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Three days before his wife, Nanette, died two years ago, John Murphy made her a promise: That he would actively seek a living donor to get a kidney transplant.

" 'You gotta open up,' she told me," Murphy said in a telephone interview over the weekend. Opening up and talking about what he's facing doesn't come easy. But when you've promised the woman who supported and helped you, who cared for you even as her own health was failing, you do what needs to be done.

That's how Murphy — known to so many as Coach Murph — came to post his plea for a kidney donor on Patch a month ago.

"I'm not an open person. I'm very, very close-mouthed," Murphy said, the emotion raw in his voice. "But I made her a promise."

Now he's got eight offers.

Murphy has been battling renal failure, going through dialysis treatments three times a week, four hours each time, since November 2015, when what appeared to be the flu turned out to be his kidneys failing. As he battled, he and Nanette navigated the path to getting him on the national kidney transplant list. The list has nearly 100,000 people waiting for a kidney, and roughly 3,000 people are added to the list every month. An estimated 37 million Americans have some form of chronic kidney disease, according to the National Kidney Foundation.

As Murphy worked to get on the transplant list — getting through a quadruple bypass — he was faced with another challenge: his beloved wife was diagnosed with glioblastoma. Nanette died in August 2017.

His wife told him "you gotta open up" just days before her death, during a conversation where she made him promise to keep fighting for a kidney transplant. In the months following her death, as he coped with the grief of losing her, a friend said the same thing to him. "You gotta open up" and talk to someone to cope with the grief.

Murphy's promise to his wife, to keep fighting to find a kidney donor and carry on with the work they did through their worth with youth athletes, including the Main Court Basketball Training Center and the Toms River Girls Basketball League they founded in 1986, pushed him forward.

So with some advice from friends, Murphy started sharing the story of his search. He set up a website with help from a friend. He wrote a blog.

"(Friends) told me to get my story out everywhere I could think of," Murphy said. So he posted his story in a Patch Neighbors post on Aug. 12, which we then shared with readers in an article on Aug. 13. (Read more: Toms River's Coach Murph Needs A Kidney Donor; You Can Help)

"I figured, 'Why not,' " Murphy said by phone. His emotional plea for help got a resounding response, he said in an email to Patch last week.

"Tuesday, August 13th, was the second anniversary of my wife Nanette's passing," Murphy wrote in the email. "We had a Mass at St. Joseph's Church, and then I went to breakfast with one of my daughters. Afterward, I returned home and between emotion and effects of dialysis, I fell asleep for about seven hours."

"When I finally woke up, for some reason I looked on my emails. I never do that. Anyway, there was an email from someone that said they would be interested in donating a kidney. At first I thought it was a joke. Then, I went on my basketball email and saw another email saying that they would be interested in donating a kidney to me. The next day, I went over to Shop-Rite to pick up prescriptions and the pharmacist called me over and told me that she saw my wonderful story, and was going to get checked to see if she could be a kidney donor."

"Thursday, August 15th, would have been our wedding anniversary. Between the 13th and the 15th, I had gotten six offers for a donation," Murphy said.

Since then Murphy has received two more offers, one from a young man who had lived in Toms River, but now lives in Florida, and a woman who lives in Toms River. Those two most recent offers both are people who share Murphy's blood type, A+.

The potential Florida donor told Murphy that "although he never had the privilege to be coached by me, he knew at least 50 of my former players and they all loved my programs," Murphy said. "He said that he would be proud to donate his kidney to me, and that this area needs me to keep teaching kids great basketball, and also courtesy, respect, and good values."

Murphy said the next steps begin this week. There will be a conference call between his cardiologist and the transplant surgeon, and if they give it the green light, testing will begin to compare the possible donors with Murphy to find the right match.

That process will take a couple of months, so Murphy, who does personal training in addition to volunteering in the community, is going to offer a fall training session as he works to build his basketball program back up. It's something he loves.

"I want the kids I can make a difference with," Murphy said. "They may not be the most talented, but they work hard and they learn and grow as players." Seeing them grow is what fills his heart as a coach.

The process of keeping his promise to Nanette has helped him grow, too. Murphy said he has been surprised by how many people have seen the article about his quest, and how many have offered support and information.

"I volunteer in a soup kitchen the first Saturday of every month," Murphy said. He was there last weekend, the start of September, and learned that his story had reached those at the soup kitchen.

"I promised her I would do everything to push to get this transplant done," he said. "It's out there. It's so out there now."

"Nanette was my strongest supporter and proponent in keeping me healthy, and making sure I always went to my dialysis appointments," Murphy wrote on his blog. "She was on the internet each night, looking for whatever information she could to help me. She knew that it would be up to me now, and wanted to make sure that I would follow through. Even in her weakened condition, she was still taking care of me. She will always be my angel."

There are thousands of others who are in need of kidneys. If you are interested in helping others who are in need of a kidney, the National Kidney Foundation has information about becoming a living donor.

If you want to contact Murphy about his fall basketball training or his personal training, reach him via email at murphdog2022@aol.com.

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