Christie Patient is a life-long explorer of the Wild West. She now resides in the Hawaiian Islands with her husband, Jonny and their two four-legged friends. Christie is a full-time freelancer, nature lover, and business owner. She took a break from work in 2019 to care for her mother, Holly before and after her double-lung transplant. Christie’s column documents the experience of her mother’s IPF progression, months-long hospitalization at UC San Francisco, and life-saving transplant. She hopes that her family’s transplant story can provide a unique perspective for other IPF patients and family members.
The pressure we put on ourselves to live full, “successful” lives can be debilitating. Transplant recipients can be burdened with extremely high expectations for what post-transplant life should look like. Organ transplantation is an incredible gift, but those expectations can cause a lot of emotional stress and guilt. Before I…
Growing up as an only child, I’ve spent my whole life hearing what one Washington Post writer calls “a slew of profoundly unflattering and occasionally contradictory stereotypes.” I’ve been told many times how lucky I am that I don’t have to share my parents’ affection with siblings. Or…
In a society that shuns openly speaking about death and dying, it’s hard to find words to grapple with the terror of the unknown and the threat of imminent grief. It can be even harder to find a space in which to utter them. When my mom, Holly,…
On Mother’s Day in 2019, I walked into the ICU on the ninth floor of University of California, San Francisco’s Parnassus campus for the last time. It had been a month since my mom, Holly, was discharged from the hospital there after having a bilateral lung transplant. Although I…
When doctors discuss the costs and benefits of getting a lung transplant, they often talk about the lifelong use of immunosuppressants. These medications can have a wide range of side effects. For example, most people experience at least a few of the many side effects of prednisone, a…
In March 2019, my mom, Holly, got a second chance at life. Her bilateral lung transplant was a gift of the highest order. It saved and prolonged her life when nothing else would. It gave her body back the power to enjoy living. It restored her health and independence.
As soon as my mom, Holly, was out of the hospital following her bilateral lung transplant, our family began efforts to protect her immunocompromised body. Before she even got the call about available donor lungs, the University of California, San Francisco lung transplant team had educated my family…
In the three weeks between my boyfriend Jonny’s proposal and our spontaneous elopement, we daydreamed about a big wedding. We decided to get married before he left for a year of training and school with the Army. Despite our legal union, we still wanted to celebrate with a ceremony of…
If I asked you to identify yourself, what would you say? “My name is …” “I am a …” “I work as a …” “I was born in …” There are an infinite number of ways to define and describe ourselves. If each facet of our personality were an ID…
Progressive lung diseases like pulmonary fibrosis cause ripple effects throughout the body. In PF, lung scarring prevents the organs from exchanging gases correctly, resulting in oxygen deficits known as hypoxemia and hypoxia. Chronic hypoxemia, or low oxygen levels in the blood, affects all parts of the body.
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