Post Transplant Sympathies

I received an email earlier this week from a long-time friend who is a nurse down south. He mentioned about this couple that he met in the step-down unit at his hospital and how the husband now needed a lung transplant due to lung fibrosis. Due to the state of this man's condition, the hospital down there has decided to have his transplant take place in Madison, Wisconsin. The wife, understandably distraught, had so many questions and no means to find answers. That was when my friend asked for her phone number and kindly sent me an email, asking that I call this woman to help. Of course, I was more than willing.

During my conversation with this woman last night, I had realized once again how far we have come. My mind was going through 4+ years of pre and post transplant daily life and when I heard her husband cough in the background, I was once again forced to remember that we were not very much different than this couple at one time. Greg had never been on 10 Liters of oxygen like this woman's husband, but he had been on a ventilator for 8 months and waited so long for his miracle. This man's coughing shook something in me because for over 9 years, Greg's cough was part of our lives. The hacking cough he would have in the morning, turning his face red and all distorted, to the crackling and wheezing his lungs would do when he was trying to take even the smallest of breaths.

Sure, the old lungs have long since been detached from my wonderful husband and the new lungs have been nothing short of a miracle. I just hope and pray that this woman and her husband are able to partake in the same wonderful miracle of a second chance of life and soon leave the coughing fits behind.