Musician donates kidney to his girlfriend Madonna
Longford musician Tommy Flaherty gave ‘The
Gift of Life’ to his girlfriend Madonna Shaughnessy by donating one of
his kidneys to her!
Madonna and three other members of her family experienced kidney failure and Tommy donated a kidney to her at the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham in January 2011.
Tommy told the Longford Leader this week, “While on a hospital visit with Madonna I picked up a leaflet called ‘The Living Donor Programme’ and it all started from there. Madonna had been waiting two years on the transplant list and thankfully the operation was a success.”
Sadly Madonna’s father and brother, who suffered from the same rare kidney condition, died but fortunately another one of her brothers received a successful transplant.
Tommy explained, “Between Ireland and England at least five people a day, waiting on the transplant list die. I felt I had to do something to help.”
One morning at 3am, when he couldn’t sleep, Tommy took pen to paper and he wrote a song, aptly entitled ‘The Gift of Life’.
“I brought the song about organ donation to Paul Gurney who in turn gave it to Charlie McGettigan. I wasn’t expecting to hear back from Paul so soon but Charlie liked the song. A few changes were made and here we are today. Between us we have made it happen.”
They’ve donated the song to the Irish Kidney Association (IKA) to help raise funds. “I believe it is going to be used in the Organ Donor Awareness campaign and I couldn’t be happier to bring some focus on such a worthy cause,” explained Tommy.
Details on when the song ‘The Gift of Life’ will be released and how it will be distributed will be be announced shortly by the IKA.
Madonna and three other members of her family experienced kidney failure and Tommy donated a kidney to her at the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham in January 2011.
Tommy told the Longford Leader this week, “While on a hospital visit with Madonna I picked up a leaflet called ‘The Living Donor Programme’ and it all started from there. Madonna had been waiting two years on the transplant list and thankfully the operation was a success.”
Sadly Madonna’s father and brother, who suffered from the same rare kidney condition, died but fortunately another one of her brothers received a successful transplant.
Tommy explained, “Between Ireland and England at least five people a day, waiting on the transplant list die. I felt I had to do something to help.”
One morning at 3am, when he couldn’t sleep, Tommy took pen to paper and he wrote a song, aptly entitled ‘The Gift of Life’.
“I brought the song about organ donation to Paul Gurney who in turn gave it to Charlie McGettigan. I wasn’t expecting to hear back from Paul so soon but Charlie liked the song. A few changes were made and here we are today. Between us we have made it happen.”
They’ve donated the song to the Irish Kidney Association (IKA) to help raise funds. “I believe it is going to be used in the Organ Donor Awareness campaign and I couldn’t be happier to bring some focus on such a worthy cause,” explained Tommy.
Details on when the song ‘The Gift of Life’ will be released and how it will be distributed will be be announced shortly by the IKA.
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