(#Repost from fellow Recipient @nu_partz95) (PART 1) Day 8036: started as most have in the last 22 years. Thoughts of my donor family, as always fill my thoughts and prayers especially today. They lost their 15 year old and with their loss gave me a chance at living a "normal" life. That is a gift that I can never repay. I want to say thank you and I have lived not only for myself but in their honor. I was diagnosed with#CF #cysticfibrosis when I was 4 months old. Prognosis wasn't very good at that time. That is where my fighting spirit comes from, I lived the normal cf life until my mid 20's. That is when my routine change. I was spending a couple weeks in the hospital for IV antibiotics and 3 or 4 months out of the hospital. That was my new normal. Then came the point where my CF specialist came in to the exam room and started talking about "END STAGE LUNG DISEASE" and how I wanted to manage my disease. I was shocked, more like denial. I believe I just refused to admit how sick I truly was at that time, even though I was on 6 liters of O2. I was still working my construction job, only missing when I was in the hospital. A few weeks passed and I was back in the hospital. While there my CF specialist came in and started talking about the possibility of Transplant, I never knew transplant was even an option. He told he that a local hospital just a short distance away had started a transplant program, and wanted to know if I would be interested in having their team come and talk to me. I was 27 and going out fighting was better than sitting there in a hospital bed. So during that hospital stay, the transplant team came to visit and reviewed my medical records. Started getting me ready for the evaluation process. After doctors, tests, more doctors, more testing a physiological evaluation, I made the list. The waiting list had to be the longest most difficult time I have ever been through. It was only 3 months but it felt like 3 years. #whenigotthecall was memorial weekend May-25-1995. The surgery was started May-26-1995 several hours later I was finished. I was number 2 #doublelungtransplantrecipient and number 1 CF #lungtransplant at my transplant center.
