The Gift Of Life
The Downey Patriot | Carolyn Fagundo
Photo: Carolyn Fagundo
DOWNEY - This time of year I wonder how I can ever really say thank you for the gift of life. I am alive because someone gave me their loved ones two lungs. It was his lungs that saved my life 10 years ago.
Twelve years ago my lungs began to fail. I was 42 years old and had been diagnosed with Ideopathic Pulmonary Fribrosis (IPF) a severe lung disease, that the only treatment to survive was a double lung transplant.
When I was told what I had, and that I would not live much longer without a transplant, I was in total shock! I did not want to die - I had three teenagers that needed their Mom. Toward the end there was no longer any medicine to help. The only hope for life was a donated organ.
I had no idea lung transplants existed. When my pulmonologist told me they were being performed and with much success, I was very interested and eager to be considered a candidate. At the time of my diagnosis, I probably had 1 1/2 years to live, based on the facts that length of life at that time was 18 months after diagnosis.
After all the steps of evaluations, and interviews, and tests, and more tests that nearly took a year, I was in the last stages of my disease, and getting worse by the day. I was finally placed on the transplant list on Dec. 2, 2002, and was told it would be a 3-month wait. I remember asking God for lungs for New Years, because I wanted to spend Christmas with my family.
Read more
{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
Photo: Carolyn Fagundo
DOWNEY - This time of year I wonder how I can ever really say thank you for the gift of life. I am alive because someone gave me their loved ones two lungs. It was his lungs that saved my life 10 years ago.
Twelve years ago my lungs began to fail. I was 42 years old and had been diagnosed with Ideopathic Pulmonary Fribrosis (IPF) a severe lung disease, that the only treatment to survive was a double lung transplant.
When I was told what I had, and that I would not live much longer without a transplant, I was in total shock! I did not want to die - I had three teenagers that needed their Mom. Toward the end there was no longer any medicine to help. The only hope for life was a donated organ.
I had no idea lung transplants existed. When my pulmonologist told me they were being performed and with much success, I was very interested and eager to be considered a candidate. At the time of my diagnosis, I probably had 1 1/2 years to live, based on the facts that length of life at that time was 18 months after diagnosis.
After all the steps of evaluations, and interviews, and tests, and more tests that nearly took a year, I was in the last stages of my disease, and getting worse by the day. I was finally placed on the transplant list on Dec. 2, 2002, and was told it would be a 3-month wait. I remember asking God for lungs for New Years, because I wanted to spend Christmas with my family.
Read more
{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
Comments
Post a Comment