Familiar figure in Roscoe needs to find new kidney
Marcy Cox pays out jackpots at bingo, serves on the board for Five Town Park and created Mr. Buttons.
“I told my coordinator I read an article about pig kidneys,” said Roscoe’s Marcy Cox. “I thought about it for a while and decided I’d be OK with that. I told her, ‘Hey, I like bacon.’ She about dropped the phone.”
That’s Marcy: funny first, tough as nails second.
The volunteer who pays out jackpots at the Roscoe fire hall bingo, helps keep Five Town Park running and once made the community fall in love with a jar named Mr. Buttons, Marcy is a spit-fire, but those who know her see she is just as sassy as she is sweet.
The woman who has made a career out of giving is now asking for something big — a kidney — and she’s not shy about saying she plans to stick around to “annoy a few more people” once she gets it.
After going through autoimmune disease, open-heart surgery and the start of dialysis earlier this year, there’s not much that can keep her down.
“I’ve had my toe amputated, open-heart surgery, and now dialysis three days a week,” Cox said. “But guess what? I’m still at the bingo window every Friday. You can’t keep me down.”
Marcy was officially added to the transplant list Sept. 10.
Three days a week, she settles into a dialysis chair, gets cozy in her blanket, pulls out her e-books, cracks a joke to steady the room and does what she’s always done — shows up.
“My life depends on me following the program, so I do it,” she said. “Simple as that. I don’t want pity — I want to live.”
Buttons, blankets and backbone
Back in 2019, Mr. Buttons — the 7-inch jar that launched a thousand Facebook comments — knit the Mon Valley together one guess at a time.
Each day, folks logged onto Facebook to take their shot at how many buttons filled the jar. The winner didn’t walk away with cash or gift cards, but something much more personal: a handmade afghan stitched by Marcy in the winner’s choice of colors.
When the original Mr. Buttons “eloped with Mrs. Beets” (as Marcy likes to tell it), his brother Bud stepped in for Round Two. Then came Baby Buttons, a few mini-contests, and even a holiday bake-off giveaway when Marcy found herself with “way too many pepperoni rolls and Christmas cookies” to keep in the house.
All told, there have been 13 full rounds of the guessing game — and each one has left behind its own little trail of stories.
One winner, a hospice worker, told Marcy her prize box of baked goods “saved her family’s Christmas” during a year when she had no time to cook. Others have cried when they received their afghans, knowing the stitches came from someone who wanted nothing more than to spread a little kindness.
“That silly jar gave shut-ins something to look forward to,” Marcy said. “If I can fill a jar with buttons and make somebody smile, I’ll do it. It’s never been about prizes — it’s about spreading kindness.”
This September, even as dialysis drains her energy, Mr. Buttons is back for another run.
The jar is recycled from a past round, the clues are as cheeky as ever and the guesses keep rolling in. She’s done so many rounds that she ran through her mother’s collection of buttons that inspired the game and now recycles the buttons that are donated to her by various people in the community.
The point, as always, isn’t the prize — it’s the joy of the game, and the community it keeps pulling together.
Toes to tickers
A few years ago, an autoimmune ambush hit Marcy like a freight train. The culprit was Henoch-Schönlein purpura (HSP), a disease so rare in adults that her doctor shook his head and called her “the kid.”
The rash blistered, her muscles seized and before long she was in a hospital bed with her toe on the line.
“My toes had a union meeting one night,” Cox joked. “They threw one guy out — that’s how I lost the toe.”
She spent weeks in seclusion while doctors fought to calm the autoimmune storm. It finally faded, but her kidneys never recovered. And the hits didn’t stop there.
In January, she started dialysis. Just days later, during a heart catheterization, doctors found the real villain: an 80% blockage in her “widowmaker” artery and two more blockages close behind. For most, that discovery might have meant despair. For Marcy, it meant another round of grit, humor and determination.
She was rushed to DuBois for openheart surgery, then sent back to Mon Valley for rehab. And true to form, she didn’t stay down for long.
“When I was lying on that table, the surgeon said, ‘Are you going to waste my surgery or make changes?’” she recalled. “I told him, ‘You get me through this and I’ll do the work.’ And I did.”
By spring, Marcy was already back to her old haunts — the bingo window, the park board and Mr. Buttons’ Facebook page — proving that even open-heart surgery couldn’t steal her punchline or her purpose.
The big ask
Volunteering isn’t just something Marcy does — it’s who she is.
Even with the fatigue that comes from undergoing dialysis three days a week, she still shows up.
She’s the steady face in the bingo window at Roscoe Volunteer Fire Department, the voice keeping Five Town Park board meetings on track and the neighbor who drops off foodbank boxes to folks who can’t get out themselves.
She admits she’s had to adjust how she lives.
Marcy’s life now runs on careful limits — especially at the dinner table. Dialysis means her kidneys can’t flush out what most people take for granted, so every bite counts.
Bananas, watermelon, cantaloupe, even Brussels sprouts and potatoes are mostly off the menu unless she soaks or prepares them just right to cut the potassium.
Red meat, ham and pork are too heavy in sodium, and fluids are capped at just 50 ounces a day.
“I love water,” she admitted, “but it’s not in my cards.”
Instead, her doctors push her toward lean proteins — at least 100 grams a day — so she jokes that she’s bulked up more from chicken and protein shakes than any gym routine.
But even that becomes an opportunity for laughter.
“I can only eat a bite or two,” Cox said. “Someone’s got to finish my dessert. That’s community service, right?”
Marcy doesn’t want pity — not from friends, not from neighbors and not from strangers. She also doesn’t want money.
She makes that clear with a shrug and a smirk.
“I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me,” she said. “If you see me at Dollar General with a cupcake, mind your business — I probably shared it anyway.”
What she does want is time, and a shot at a new kidney.
Dialysis, she admits, is exhausting. She takes her naps, then gets back up to live her life.
She doesn’t drink or smoke. She tracks her labs. She follows the plan.
That matters — transplant teams want to know a patient will protect the gift they’re asking for.
She leans on humor to carry her through the wait. But behind the jokes is a real need.
The average wait for a kidney is five to seven years, but living donation — where someone steps forward to give directly, or through a paired exchange program — can shorten that.
How to help
Here are a few ways to stand with her (and others walking the same road):
• Think about living donation. Even if you’re not a direct match, the paired exchange system can swap your gift with another donor so Marcy receives a kidney that fits. Start with your nearest transplant center’s Living Donor Program and tell them you’d like to be evaluated to help Marcy Cox of Roscoe.
• Spread the word. Share this story, talk about living donation at church, at work or at the fire hall. Awareness has always been Marcy’s superpower — just ask Mr. Buttons.
• Offer a hand. Be the ride to dialysis, the one who finishes her dessert (“that’s community service,” as Marcy says) or the volunteer who keeps her company at Roscoe VFD bingo or Five Town Park.
• Play along. Mr. Buttons is still at it on Facebook. Drop a guess, share a laugh and keep the kindness moving — because that’s the currency that started all of this.
Anyone who feels called to step forward as a donor can reach out to Marcy directly or contact the living donor office at her transplant clinic. Reference her case, and they’ll guide you through the next steps with care and confidentiality. For more information, call 1-877-640-6746 or go to UPMC.com/LivingDonorTransplant.
Marcy’s ready. “I’ve still got people to annoy,” she said with a grin. “It’s not my day to go.”
