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Surgery and recovery involves more than replacing your lungs. The process also includes making the physical and emotional adjustment to life with your new lungs.

It is important to discuss a possible lung transplant long before you need to be listed. This will give you time to prepare for transplant as a future option and work with your cystic fibrosis care team to understand the implications and to create a plan.

When my mom used to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I told her that I wanted to be a dad. The journey to fatherhood with cystic fibrosis is full of obstacles, but I would give anything to pass on the traits I've gained from living with this disease to a child of my own.

Although my lung transplant was the end of one story, it was also the beginning of another, more difficult story.

After my transplant team said I was too sick to undergo a double-lung transplant, I was determined to get well enough so that I could.

After two double-lung transplants my lungs don't have CF anymore, but the rest of me still does. In a very real way, CF isn't "behind me" at all. And that's why I continue to fight. 

I recently attended the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Lung Transplantation Summit. Many of the areas for improvement cited by the experts matched what I have seen as the mother of a two-time double-lung transplant recipient.

In 2008, Brandon Rees underwent lung transplantation because his lungs had deteriorated to the point that he need a healthy pair to survive.