I will always be grateful to the donor who gave me my new life

Former Meath minor footballer, David Crosby’s happy life as a young husband and dad was plunged into disaster just over a year ago, when he found himself staring death in the face from a rapidly deteriorating lung disease.

Luckily for him and thanks to the generosity of an organ donor, David is now fighting fit and is preparing to run the New York marathon next November.
Around 11 months ago, he underwent a life saving double lung transplant in Dublin’s Mater Hospital and he will be forever grateful to the lung transplant unit there and most importantly, to his anonymous donor and his or her family.
Forever grateful for his second chance at life David is now organising a major fund raiser for the unit and to honour the donor who gave him the precious gift of life.
David and 13 other family members and friends will travel to New York in November to take part in the city’s famous marathon.
“We are all paying all our own expenses so all the money raised through sponsorship will go directly to the lung transplant unit.”
As they prepare for the marathon, the fund raising continues and on 11th March, David is holding a 5k and 10k fun run in Kingscourt, as part of his training and again as a fund raiser for the transplant unit.
The entry fee is €10 for adults and €5 for students. Registration is at 10am at the Kingscourt GAA pitch and the race begins at 11am.
David was the eldest of five children of Kathleen and Eugene Crosby of Meath Hill, but the family moved to Kingscourt when he was 19.
David was a year old when his sister Regina was born. She became ill at 10 days old and sadly passed away at seven months with lung disease.
Two years later his brother, Paul was born, but the tragedy continued when he too fell ill at 10 days old and died at the age of two with lung disease. Doctors said there was no obvious link between the deaths.
David then had a sister Anne Marie Hynes who was born, and still is, healthy, then his bother Ciarán was born when David was ten years old. Heartbreakingly, Ciarán also became ill when he was ten days old and was diagnosed with Fibrosing Alveolitis, a condition of the lungs.
“He died when he was 11 and a half and had written a book about his life before he passed away called Too Many Angels.”
The litany of tragedy was hard to come back from, but David started to live his life and went to school in Meath Hill and Nobber.
He was fit, a talented footballer selected to play with the Meath Minors and was on the panel or the All Ireland Final in 1993.
He spent some time in New York but returned home and married his wife, Katie, who was originally from Moynalty in 2004. They have three children Keria (10), Darragh (8) and Erin (6).
Life was good, but then in 2015 disaster struck.
David got a cough in August, thought nothing of it, but went to his doctor and was prescribed steroids.
“They weren’t working so I went back and he sent me to Navan for an X-ray. Then I was sent for a biopsy and the results showed I had ideopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
“I was told the condition cannot be reversed, cannot be stopped. It can only be slowed down and that I would start medication.
David and Katie decided to bring forward a holiday they had planned to Florida with the children.
“We went before I started my treatment because we wanted to create a few memories in case everything went wrong,” he recalls.
They came home in November 2015 and David started on several different medications.
By the end of November he was on oxygen 24/7 and by December he was extremely ill with very low lung function capacity. By Christmas he had been told he needed a lung transplant and underwent a series of tests in preparation for it.
“The consultant, Professor Jim Egan, told me I needed to lose two and a half stone before I would be considered for surgery. I started a diet on 22nd December and lost the weight in eight weeks.
“I went on the list on a Tuesday and on the Friday, I was told there was a set of lungs.”
Despite rushing to the Mater, the surgery did not go ahead as the lungs had begun to deteriorate.
However 17 days later he received another call.
He was rushed by ambulance to the hospital and his surgery went ahead at 5.30am the following morning, carried out by Mr Hossein Javadpour.
“It was a total success, but it was tough afterwards. I was on a lot of medication. I was agitated for the first few days and couldn’t sleep but eventually I realised everything was working well and I was going to recover,” he recalls.
“Words cannot express what my donor and his or her family have done for me and my family. I will always be grateful.
“I have to respect their privacy and I wrote a letter to them, they can read it if they choose or not that is up to them, he explains.
As he recovered, David felt the need to honour his donor and he wanted to help the transplant unit in the Mater so while talking with friends and family they decided on the fund raising marathon.

Among those who will travel with him to run in the New York marathon are his wife, Katie, mother, Kathleen, cousins, Denise Carolan, Margaret O’Rourke, Stephen Power, Michael Crosby, Enda Coyle and Katie Sexton, his friend and fitness instructor, Andy O’Brien, and friends David McNally, David Watters and Sean Kieran, as well as surgeon, Professor David Healy.
David has set himself four challenges on the road to recovery. The first was running the Clontarf 5 mile run, which he did eight months after his surgery.
The second, is the 10k in Kingscourt on 11th March, the third is a half marathon in September and the fourth is the New York marathon.
He has had a lot of support from the running group in Kingscourt who run every Tuesday and Thursday evening.
“It will be roughly 600 days after my surgery that I will run the New York marathon.”
David has an “Everyday Hero page where people can donate - give.everydayhero.com/greatnesswithindavidcrosby.
David’s fund raising continues - he has held bucket collections at football matches and will hold a golf classic an Mannon Castle, Carrickmacross on 12th May.
He is also planning on auctioning a number of special items such as signed Irish and Ulster rugby jerseys, a signed Cavan football jersey and Johnny Sexton’s rugby and training jerseys, also signed. He has a signed Jurgen Klopp managers top and hopes to get a signed Meath jersey as well.
David is so grateful to his donor that he wants others to consider making the same decision.
“If you want to be a donor, have that conversation with your loved ones. It’s good having a donor card, but they will be the ones who will have to make the decision, so let them know how you feel,” he said.
“I will always be grateful to my donor. He or she gave me a whole new life and without their courage, I could not be looking forward to walking my daughters down the aisle.”