Tom Bradley, a Haverhill High School basketball and track standout in the 70s, has a new lease on life thanks to a successful kidney transplantation.
Now a resident of Knoxville, Tenn., Bradley, 66, received his new kidney at Ascension St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville two weeks ago after a wait of just a year and four months. Bradley said his Tom’s Kidney Crusade included a Facebook page, posters and bumper stickers with a QR code.
“I had a very, very successful campaign not just because I got a donor match but because of the number of people who were inspired to get involved which will ultimately help others,” Bradley told WHAV, noting his bumper stickers were spotted in locations across the country. “This isn’t just about me. It’s about spreading the word about the living kidney donor program.”
His aggressive campaign to find a donor included an appearance, as WHAV reported at the time, by his brother, Gary, at a Haverhill City Council meeting last March.
Haverhill at-large City Councilor John A. Michitson, who was in Bradley’s class at Haverhill High, recalls him as “very popular,” a characteristic that helped in his search for a kidney donor since so many people wanted to help, Michitson said.
According to Donate Life America, at any given time 90,000 Americans are waiting for a kidney. The average wait is three to five years, generally shorter for a living donor.
Bradley is a member of the Haverhill High School Class of 1977. Following graduation from UMass Lowell, he spent six years in the U.S. Air Force before joining the Federal Aviation Administration. He retired in 2021. He said he was “running up and down the field” refereeing lacrosse when fatigue set in in 2022. That led to a series of hospitalizations and heart bypass surgery in December 2023. His kidneys, though, never recovered and, by May of 2024, he was diagnosed with end stage renal disease.
He and his wife, Diane, are spending the next month or so in Nashville to be convenient to doctors and so that he can rest up.
“I also have to give credit to the power of prayer,” Bradley said, noting he is a faithful Roman Catholic. “To me it is not a coincidence that I was signed up with five medical centers but I got the call from the one Catholic hospital.”