Rowing Through Life’s Storm

David Crosby described his life as rowing in the Atlantic during the worst storm imaginable.

Now in the calm soothing waters, he is navigating his life back home just outside Kingscourt.

Last Thursday morning, the Celt caught David on a good day. In saying this, he didn’t mean weather wise, despite his plans to go golfing with friends later that day.

On a Monday, Wednesday and Friday, David makes the trip to Cavan General Hospital for dialysis, a procedure that carries out what his kidneys should be able to do but can’t.

“How much do you know about me?” David asked, not knowing which element of his story to delve into first.

The father of three wasn’t actually rowing in the Atlantic. David was battling his Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) diagnosis, which saw him receive a double lung transplant in 2016, when The Mater hospital in Dublin first became his “home.”

“I did three marathons after that, I was flying, best thing ever,” he beamed, grabbing his medals off their hook in the family’s sitting room.

He completed marathons in New York, Berlin and London; his training, form, and diet was all in peak condition. He seemed unstoppable.

That is until he contacted COVID-19 in August 2020, when he returned to his ‘home from home’, The Mater, where a consultant uttered the words nobody wants to hear.

“David, there’s not a lot more we can do for you,” he was told.

“We can try something but you have to talk to your parents and say goodbye to your family.”

He was given a drug, which had positive effects on Covid in Canada, however it had never been used on a transplant patient. The Meath man was put in a coma, when he had to say goodbye to his parents, his wife Katie and his three kids Kiera (16), Darragh (14) and Erin (12). During this stage, his family were called to The Mater twice.

“Things were going wrong, if I hit another marker I was gone,” he said of his condition.

Three weeks later, David woke up unable to walk or talk but with a functioning brain. He was on a dialysis machine, following failure of both his kidneys. Upon wakening, having experienced severe psychosis which he described as similar to a James Bond film, the first thing he thought of was who was left coaching the Meath Hill senior team, which he had done prior to his diagnosis.

“I couldn’t move a finger, to me I was in hospital and fell asleep.

“You come out of a coma, you just want to play football, you’re hooked up to this machine and your blood’s moving the whole time.

“I didn’t know what was going on.”

Following this, the daily hospital routine became his own. A finger prick at 6am, a visit from the doctor, breakfast, lunch, free during the day, dinner, more doctors, medication, rehabilitation. On a Monday or Tuesday, David recalled feeling particularly annoyed as the doctors would return from their weekend off, in the outside world.

“I remember thinking will I ever get home to Kingscourt, I couldn’t see any way out.”

On a renal diet, putting on weight was difficult for David, however it was the condition that would see him leave the hospital. He said “anything nice” was off his diet.

“How am I going to put on weight when you’re giving me rabbit food?” he asked.

A former attacking half back for the Meath Hill team, David started “working the system” finding ways to incorporate more calorific dense foods into his diet, for example crumbling rich tea biscuits into his porridge.

“It was like rowing a rowing boat into the Atlantic and a big storm coming against you, you’re going absolutely nowhere but you can’t stop,” he described.

“It was so hard,” he said. However, he learned from his brother Ciaran that “every problem has a solution”.

“I started thinking about what they were saying and figuring it out.”

Sitting up, standing and walking were all massive challenges for David, who remembered three steps feeling like a five-kilometre race.

“These were my new marathons,” he said.

David was discharged from hospital after 66 days.

“It was like the lotto, just to get home, to get down that lane,” he said, pointing out his sitting room window.

Life had changed dramatically for David, with three times weekly hospital appointments in Cavan, in a wheelchair and on oxygen, not being able to drive and being completely reliant on others was a struggle for David.

“I’m not good at asking for help,” he confessed.

Although he built up an excellent relationship with his nurses and taxi drivers, ovver the good weather in June, David decided he would try driving himself.

“I’m driving now myself,” he beamed.

“From being in a wheelchair to driving myself, it’s progress and I’m always trying to go forward.

“I’ve a little saying in my head, shoot for the stars, you’ll land on the moon,” he said, reasoning that, even if you don’t make it to where you aim to be, you’ll go somewhere.

David is on a kidney transplant waiting list among 600 others for the past eight months. He has big aspiration of becoming the first person in Ireland to win the Super Six, completing six marathons the remainder of which are Boston Tokyo and Chicago.

At 48 years of age, David said: “I’m not old yet, I’ve stuff to do, I’ve three more marathons to do.

“I’m going to get it, I will get it,” he insisted, adding that he will be the first in the world to get a double lung transplant with the achievement.

For now, though, he is enjoying the calmness of life

“Everything has calmed down, I’m in a place where the water has settled.

“That rowing boat, the storm has calmed.

“I can put the oars down for a little bit.”

Sitting on the windowsill of the family home is an image of a closed fist. The four fingers represent his wife Kate, and his three children Kiera (16), Darragh (14) and Erin (12). David is the thumb on the inside of the fingers, symbolic of the care of his “amazing” family gave to him. He knows he will have to endure another transplant but, for now, he is enjoying time with his family and going golfing with his friends.

“Normal for us is amazing because it hasn’t been normal,” he concluded.