Offaly family counts its blessings as three sisters receive transplants

August is a very significant month in the life of Clareen native, Phil Molloy. It was the month she received her life-saving kidney transplant and exactly a year to the date later her adored first grandchild was born!

Phil was born with a hereditary kidney condition known as Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD), but thanks to the miracle of organ donation she is now enjoying a new lease of life having received a kidney transplant in Beaumont Hospital in August 2020.

Born into a family of 12 children in Clareen, Phil Molloy (nee Murphy) was one of six members of her family to inherit PKD. Incredibly, her five brothers escaped the disease, along with her sister, Bernie (Carroll) who lives in Kinnitty, but the lives of six of the Murphy sisters were severely impacted by the hereditary kidney condition.

Phil, who lives in Kinnitty with her husband, Jerome, managed to stave off dialysis treatment until five years ago, not long after another sister, Josie (McGill) came off dialysis having undergone a successful kidney transplant.

A third sister, Brigid (Flaherty) received her first kidney transplant over 20 years ago, which lasted for ten years, and has undergone another transplant since then which has been going strong for the past 11 years.

Sadly, three of Phil’s sisters have passed away, Mary, Veronica and Madge, but Phil admits that she and her two sisters who are now enjoying a new lease of life due to kidney transplantation “count our blessings every single day” and are incredibly grateful to the families who made the decision to donate their loved ones organs in their time of grief.

The wider family network of Phil, Josie and Brigid Murphy has also been impacted by kidney disease, with their two cousins, Michael Coughlan (who is a neighbour of Phil’s in Kinnitty, and his brother Christy (who lives in Clareen) also enjoying a new lease of life after their kidney transplants.

PKD is a disease which causes numerous cysts to grow on the kidneys causing damaged to kidney function. This, in turn, can lead to kidney failure. Phil Molloy’s father, John Murphy, passed away at the young age of 43 after suffering for many years with kidney failure. She says the hereditary condition was “unknown” when her parents John and Rita, were rearing their large family in Clareen.

Phil is very thankful that neither of her two daughters, Pamela and Mary, inherited PKD, and both herself and her husband were “overjoyed” in August of last year when they became grandparents for the first time when their adored granddaughter Saoirse Cordial was born. “It was extra special for me because she arrived exactly a year to the day when I was called for my kidney transplant,” says Phil.

Describing how she felt before she underwent her transplant and while she was on dialysis for three and a half years, Phil Molloy said she was “at death’s door” and had no appetite and no energy. “I could come sleep all day and the tiredness was just crippling,” she recalls. “The transplant has changed my life for the better in so many ways, both physically and mentally, and I say a prayer and light a candle every day for my donor.”

Phil and her sisters have shared their story in support of the Irish Kidney Association’s Organ Donor Awareness Week, which runs from April 23 to 30, and is held in association with Organ Donation Transplant Ireland.

This year’s awareness campaign is built around the theme Share your Wishes about organ donation #ShareYourWishes. The key message is that members of the public can play their part in supporting organ donation for transplantation by ensuring that their families know their wishes. i.e., they ‘have the conversation’.

Individuals who wish to support organ donation are encouraged to keep the reminders of their decision available by carrying the organ donor card, permitting Code 115 to be included on their driver’s licence or having the ‘digital organ donor card’ App on their smartphone.

Organ Donor Cards can be requested by visiting the website www.ika.ie/get-a-donor-card or to your phone, phoning the Irish Kidney Association on 01 6205306 or Free text the word DONOR to 5005