A tale of two transplants
CNN
Editor's note: In the Human Factor, we profile survivors who have overcome the odds. Confronting a life obstacle â€" injury, illness or other hardship â€" they tapped their inner strength and found resilience they didn't know they possessed. Two years ago, we profiled singer Charity Tillemann-Dick, whose lungs were failing due to pulmonary hypertension. But she survived thanks to a double-lung transplant. This week Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports on how this soprano from Denver, Colorado, was facing death a second time because her lungs were failing again. Here, Tillemann-Dick writes about her struggle
It was the worst of times. I was afraid to go to sleep, fearing the next breath just wouldn’t come if I didn’t force my diaphragm down. The muscle is supposed to work involuntarily, but I think my diaphragm forgot that fact.
I had tubes coming out of my arms, wrists, chest and anywhere else you might be able to fit a tube. My body ached. My head pounded. I was miserable. Still, all I wanted was to live. I wanted to wake up and see my husband. I wanted to sit down at a meal and eat with my family. I wanted to stay up late gossiping with my mother and my sisters. I wanted to go outside and take a walk. I wanted to continue my life-long dream of being an opera singer.
I was waiting at The Cleveland Clinic for a lung transplant. But I wasn't waiting for my first. One year earlier, my body began to reject the first set of transplanted lungs and so I waited behind others, hoping a match would come but knowing it wasn’t a sure thing -â€" it wasn’t even likely.
In the same ward of the hospital was Ashley Dias. Like me, she had one transplant which, ultimately was rejected by her body. As a 20-something-year-old, Ashley waited, hoping for a match, hoping for her life back. Like, my mother, her mother waited with her in Cleveland, looking forward to the day when they would go back to Boston together.
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{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
Editor's note: In the Human Factor, we profile survivors who have overcome the odds. Confronting a life obstacle â€" injury, illness or other hardship â€" they tapped their inner strength and found resilience they didn't know they possessed. Two years ago, we profiled singer Charity Tillemann-Dick, whose lungs were failing due to pulmonary hypertension. But she survived thanks to a double-lung transplant. This week Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports on how this soprano from Denver, Colorado, was facing death a second time because her lungs were failing again. Here, Tillemann-Dick writes about her struggle
It was the worst of times. I was afraid to go to sleep, fearing the next breath just wouldn’t come if I didn’t force my diaphragm down. The muscle is supposed to work involuntarily, but I think my diaphragm forgot that fact.
I had tubes coming out of my arms, wrists, chest and anywhere else you might be able to fit a tube. My body ached. My head pounded. I was miserable. Still, all I wanted was to live. I wanted to wake up and see my husband. I wanted to sit down at a meal and eat with my family. I wanted to stay up late gossiping with my mother and my sisters. I wanted to go outside and take a walk. I wanted to continue my life-long dream of being an opera singer.
I was waiting at The Cleveland Clinic for a lung transplant. But I wasn't waiting for my first. One year earlier, my body began to reject the first set of transplanted lungs and so I waited behind others, hoping a match would come but knowing it wasn’t a sure thing -â€" it wasn’t even likely.
In the same ward of the hospital was Ashley Dias. Like me, she had one transplant which, ultimately was rejected by her body. As a 20-something-year-old, Ashley waited, hoping for a match, hoping for her life back. Like, my mother, her mother waited with her in Cleveland, looking forward to the day when they would go back to Boston together.
Read more-video
{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
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