Blog

As a social worker, my career has been primarily focused on crisis intervention and psychiatric hospitalizations for those with mental illness. It wasn't until I received a double-lung transplant that I learned firsthand just how important mental health and trauma management can be.

Because of the gift of one selfless donor, I am celebrating my first year with my new lungs. Even though I spent more than two and a half years on the double-lung transplant list and had a rough year after transplant, breathing easy has made it all worth it.

I had a lung transplant earlier this year and, although I'm able to do more physically than I could before my transplant, I still have cystic fibrosis. I still need support -- support from the CF community, from the CF Foundation, and from you.

The video of the second plenary at this year's North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference was focused on lung transplantation and is now available to watch online. Having had a lung transplant and as one of the people with CF featured in the video, this particular session had a personal meaning for me.

Not many people can say they had a second chance at life. But, thanks to organ donation, I can. And I'm not just alive -- I'm living. My feet hit the floor every morning because there is no better motivation than clear purpose, which for me is motherhood.

Halloween, April Fools' Day, and Mother's Day may be average American holidays for most, but for me, they mark three important days in my long, emotional journey toward a new pair of lungs.