Toms River's Coach Murph Needs A Kidney Donor; You Can Help

TOMS RIVER, NJ — For more than 40 years, John Murphy has been giving his time and energy to the community.

He and his wife, Nanette, founded the Toms River Girls Basketball League in 1986. They later founded Ocean County's first AAU program, the Ocean County Shoreliners. He's coached baseball and softball, too, imparting important lessons of goal-setting, responsibility, communication, and cooperation, to hundreds of young athletes. He's also given his time to organizations that provide meals and clothing to homeless veterans and others in need.

It's a life he's found very fulfilling. A life he wants to continue to lead. But there's one thing getting in the way: kidney failure.

"I have end-stage renal failure and have been on dialysis for almost four years," Murphy wrote in a post on Patch, seeking to spread the word about his quest to find a living donor. Murphy's kidneys began to fail in November 2015, when what appeared to be the flu led to renal failure and landed him on dialysis. Three times a week, every week since the 2015 illness, Murphy has been hooking up to a dialysis machine to remove wastes from his blood.

Dialysis has a life expectancy of about five years, he said. A more hopeful option is receiving a transplant, which is a new lease on life.

"I need those additional years to continue to help those in need, and our youth for many years to come," said Murphy, who has been a varsity multi-sports coach for more than 40 years. He's had 65 student-athletes who received basketball scholarships, and 68 who have scored 1,000 or more points in their scholastic and/or collegiate careers.

"My wife always told me, 'You are giving kids a chance to be successful adults by your teaching,' " he said.

"Coach Murph ... has been such an important part of many of our children's lives. He taught our children more than just the Xs and Os on the court, he taught them respect, hard work, honor, and loyalty," said Cliff Baker, who created a GoFundme for the Murphys in the wake of their illnesses.

That's why he's taken his quest to find a donor to every platform possible: he knows time is running out.

According to the United States Renal Data System, there were more than 28,000 people in end-stage renal failure as of Sept. 30, 2018. The USRDS tracks the number of patients across the country who are in end-stage renal disease, meaning they rely on dialysis. An estimated 37 million Americans have some form of chronic kidney disease, according to the National Kidney Foundation.

There are about 100,000 people waiting for a kidney and roughly 3,000 people are added to the list every month.

For those in end-stage kidney disease, finding a donor is critical to survival. While some kidney donations come as the result of a death, increasingly donations are coming from living donors, often as part of arrangements that lead to multiple donors providing kidneys to assist multiple recipients. That's the path Murphy hopes will provide the opportunity find a donor and the life-saving transplant he needs.

"I desperately need my 'Angel' to step forward now to save my life, by volunteering to give me a kidney (blood type A+, but any type would work because of the Paired Kidney Exchange)," he wrote.

And he's desperate in part because he promised Nanette, whom he lost in August 2017 to glioblastoma, an aggressive brain tumor, that he would not quit fighting to find a transplant or quit fighting to live.

"Since Thanksgiving Eve of 2015, I have lived in a hell that has a very small chance of returning to any semblance of a normal life," Murphy wrote on a blog he started to help get his story out. Thanksgiving Eve 2015, when he expected to be baking apple pies for family and helping his wife prepare their Thanksgiving meal, Murphy instead found himself receiving emergency dialysis.

Murphy had seen his doctor that day for a routine visit, and when he though the would be heading home, the doctor "said that I could go home and enjoy the holiday, but if I did that, I might not survive the weekend. Or, we could meet him at the emergency room of our local hospital right away."

The following June, Murphy had a quadruple bypass. Then in January 2017, Nanette was diagnosed with glioblastoma. She died in August 2017.

Three days before her death, however, Nanette pushed her husband to keep pressing on.

"Nanette was my strongest supporter and proponent in keeping me healthy, and making sure I always went to my dialysis appointments. 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," he wrote.

That is what brings him to this place, where he has put his plea for help on multiple places on the internet, including a blog and on Patch, hoping to find a donor.

"I am told that the more people who know of my need, the better my chance is of reaching a person willing to be an altruistic donor," Murphy wrote.

While Murphy noted that his blood type is A+, anyone who's a willing donor but not an exact match can still donate through the arrangement called "paired kidney donations," or kidney swapping.

"A donor who might not be a match for me might be a match for someone else and I would be eligible to receive that person’s donor’s kidney, which would be a match for me," he wrote.

Those interested can watch a short video by Dr. Lloyd E. Ratner entitled "Becoming A Kidney Donor." He is affiliated with New York Presbyterian-Columbia Hospital.

Those with questions are encouraged to call Gwen Lupton, who is Murphy's living donor coordinator, at 856-796-9374. She is affiliated with Our Lady Of Lourdes Hospital in Camden, NJ. His transplant coordinator is Alexa Jantorno and she can be reached at 856-796-9380.

"Just tell them that you are calling concerning becoming a possible donor for John Murphy, from Toms River. They would be able to answer any questions that you may have," he said.

"This is a tall order, and a major ask," he wrote. "My name is John Murphy, and I am in desperate need of a kidney transplant. Not necessarily your kidney – but someone’s. You can help by sharing my story and website with your friends on social media, in addition to other places. Together, we can find that 'Angel' who is willing to make the extraordinary gift which will save my life."

So far, the GoFundme has raised $17,500 of its $30,000 goal. Click here for more information or to contribute.

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