Dad's organ donation to son leads to career change

Dad's organ donation to son leads to career change

By JENNIFER VOGELSONG
The Associated Press
September 29, 2007 12:02 PM

YORK, Pa. - After a perfect pregnancy and a perfect delivery, doctors told Wendy and Patrick Murphy that their first child might live for only a couple of days. The boy's breathing was shallow, and they suspected autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease.

Wendy still recalls the walk to the neonatal intensive care unit, looking at her son lying next to all the other little babies. She recalls feeling disbelief, then being overwhelmed by it all.

Within 24 hours, the news improved. Specialists said Sean could live as long as five or 10 years before he'd need a kidney transplant. They told the Murphys that, while not immediately fatal, his condition would mean a childhood filled with doctors, hospitals and numerous health challenges.

One day in November 1998, when he was 2, Sean began gasping for breath in a way that frightened both his parents and the emergency department staff. His kidneys had stopped working, causing congestive heart failure.

Doctors put Sean on dialysis. The following January, they couldn't stabilize his cholesterol levels, so they had to remove both kidneys.

"People can live on dialysis for many years, but the longer you're on it, the more harmful it is to your body," Wendy said. Sometimes, dialysis isn't enough, and patients die while waiting for a transplant.

Both Wendy and Patrick had been tested as organ donors. Both were matches. But Wendy had just delivered the couple's second son, Seth, and could no longer donate.

It would be up to Patrick to save their son's life.

He said he thought nothing of it at the time: "It was such a whirlwind, you just kind of put your head down and go through it," he said. "I was more worried about him."

Back then, no one could have guessed that Sean's condition would one day change his father's life.

Before dawn on a Tuesday morning in March 1999, Wendy watched both her husband and her son prepare for surgery.

Patrick went first. Doctors slashed his side and harvested his left kidney. All went well.

Then it was Sean's turn.

When Wendy went to see Sean in the recovery room, it was obvious something was wrong.

"His head was the size of a basketball," she recalled. "The nurse said he wasn't urinating."

Later that evening, Sean had a second surgery to repair a ureter that didn't attach properly during the transplant.

For the next couple of years, Sean was in and out of the hospital with bouts of rejection. He took nearly a dozen medicines each day. The drugs caused cataracts, weight gain and lymph node cancer, which he eventually beat.

One of the nurses or doctors suggested to Wendy that she volunteer as a counselor for Camp Kydnie, a special-needs summer camp north of Bloomsburg. She took Sean with her, excited for him to do regular kid activities with accommodations for his condition.

The camp became an annual trip for the family. Patrick took a week off from his work as a consulting engineer each year to be a counselor there, too.

"It was such an amazing experience, spending time with these kids," he said. "It was so rewarding."

Patrick had been unhappy at work for some time. The long hours, pressure and politics were getting to him. Working with the campers was like a breath of fresh air. It was tough at times but, mostly, it was fun.

"You really have to accept them where they are and work with them at that level," he said.

As Sean's health improved and he was able to play some sports, Patrick started coaching Sean's tee-ball and baseball teams. He enjoyed helping the children do their best at the game.

Maybe he'd enjoy teaching, he thought. So he signed up for night classes at York College to work toward his teaching certificate and became a parent volunteer in Sean's fourth-grade classroom at Dallastown's Ore Valley Elementary.

Then, one day in February 2006, after working as an engineer for 12 years, Patrick quit his job.

"I didn't realize how much it was affecting him until I saw him free of that," Wendy said.

That fall, he became a full-time student.

"I definitely jumped off a cliff doing that, but my family was very supportive," he said. "It was a weight off my shoulders."

These days, Sean takes only three medicines each day. He plays baseball and is in the chorus at his school. He wants to play the drums , or maybe the saxophone , and maybe travel to Australia with the People to People student ambassador program.

Wendy said that, eventually, Sean will need another kidney transplant, but there's no way to put a time frame on when.

Patrick guesses that if it weren't for the experiences he went through with Sean, his values and priorities might not have shifted.

"I'd probably still be doing what I was doing," he said. "But quitting my job and taking a $30,000 pay cut was not nearly as big of a trauma as I went through with my son. I had become less worried about the monetary side of things and more concerned with having a good life."

Justine Kloske, a fourth-grade teacher at Ore Valley, first met Patrick 10 years ago, when she taught with his wife at West York School District. "He was much more serious then," she said.

Last year, Patrick was a parent volunteer in her classroom. "In the classroom, he has a magnetism about him with the kids," Kloske said. "They'd get excited on days when he would come in. ... I think since going through all that with Sean, it's made him think about what is important. He's going to be a great teacher because of the life experiences he has had."

Wendy said that, every day, she looks at her husband and the scar on his left side, and she gives thanks for having him as the hero in their lives: "Without him and all of his wonderful support, our family may have never gotten through those rough times."

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Information from: York Daily Record, http://www.ydr.com

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/103-09292007-1415680.html