5 years ago tonight
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@89th said in 5 years ago tonight:
So this was during my hiatus, mind providing a bit of a recap? But no spoilers plz! Don't want to ruin the ending.
I got a bilateral lung transplant after quite a long wait. I had moved to Durham to get it done at Duke thinking I’d be there 3-4 months, I was there 15 months.
@jon-nyc said in 5 years ago tonight:
@89th said in 5 years ago tonight:
So this was during my hiatus, mind providing a bit of a recap? But no spoilers plz! Don't want to ruin the ending.
I got a bilateral lung transplant after quite a long wait. I had moved to Durham to get it done at Duke thinking I’d be there 3-4 months, I was there 15 months.
Thanks! I think you hugged me like 6 years ago in that bar in Arlington but I doubt that is correlated.
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@lufins-dad said in 5 years ago tonight:
5 years is actually a huge mark for transplants, isn’t it?
It’s not an out-of-the-woods sign like with some cancers. The risk of dying from infection or rejection is pretty stable and pretty material year after year.
Lung transplants have the worst prognosis of all the solid organ transplants. Median survival is something like 5.8 years. I should do much better than that though.
@jon-nyc said in 5 years ago tonight:
Lung transplants have the worst prognosis of all the solid organ transplants. Median survival is something like 5.8 years. I should do much better than that though.
I may have mentioned this to Jon, or perhaps posted publicly....
About 6 years ago, I was giving "anesthesia" for an organ harvest. If someone was an organ donor, a team would come from one of the teaching transplant centers in Chicago, and harvest the organs that were suitable for transplant. My job was to keep the patient "alive" - hemodynamically stable and well oxygenated while they took the organs that needed a blood supply. Once they clamped the aorta, and the heart stopped, I was done, and I'd leave. The team would spend another couple of hours after I'd gone.
Anyhow, the surgeon was a pleasant lady from Northwestern. After I was "relieved," and she was waiting for someone else to harvest the liver, I believe, I pulled her aside and told her that I have a friend who needs a lung transplant, and told her the disease.
"So, how do these folks do?"
"⅓. ⅓. ⅓," she said. "One out of three do great ( ~ five years), one out of three do so-so, with multiple relapses/rejections, and one out of three do crappy."
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Was that the photo of Jon either kissing or being kissed on the cheek by . . . the other guy? Great shot!
@catseye3 said in 5 years ago tonight:
Was that the photo of Jon either kissing or being kissed on the cheek by . . . the other guy? Great shot!
Wow 10+ years, how time flies. And yes, Jon was kissing me on the cheek.
I still haven't washed that cheek.
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I just remember that for a couple of days, all of us were holding our collective breath waiting/praying/hoping to hear. I also remember thinking that Rachel must have really had it rough. And then wonderful news.
@kluurs said in 5 years ago tonight:
I just remember that for a couple of days, all of us were holding our collective breath waiting/praying/hoping to hear. I also remember thinking that Rachel must have really had it rough. And then wonderful news.
+1
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I was on a break from the internet (and pretty much all contact with the outer world) at the time bush camping in BC. I actually didn't find out about the surgery until around Xmas time when it was mentioned in passing on another thread.
The main thing is that you, Jon, have done remarkably well healing and adapting to your new lease on life. Congratulations to you and your family.
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Wow. Five years already. Our Jon will chart new territory for his own version of a long hauler, living an extraordinary number of years post transplant.
Congrats, Jon! Here's to many more years.
