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Christie Patient Joins Forum Moderator Team
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Holly Patient (left) and Christie Patient DuBois, photo by Hannah Falk[/caption]Greetings PF Forum participants! I am your newest forums moderator. I’m excited to work with my friend Charlene to help keep the conversation flowing and support this community. Some of you may be familiar with my column “Courage to Care”. I have been writing the column for almost two years now, and am excited to get more involved with readers and community members here in the forums.
If you have not read my column before, I’d like to introduce myself and tell a bit of my story here.
My mom Holly was referred to the pulmonology team at the University of San Francisco California (UCSF) after several years of worsening pulmonary symptoms. They went through a number of potential diagnoses before landing on IPF in the summer of 2019. My mom started using supplemental oxygen to improve her quality of life, but it would not be long before an acute exacerbation brought her to a crux that would change all of our lives.
She had been waiting for the right time to tell me about what her diagnosis would mean, and that a lung transplant might be part of her story eventually. Instead of doing things on her time, IPF had its own plans.
On December 26th, 2018 my mom was flown on MedEvac to UCSF. She was in pulmonary failure with cardiac complications. She was admitted to the ICU where the transplant team began around-the-clock care and life-saving interventions. She would not have survived much longer without the level of care she received at UCSF. Over the course of the next three weeks, they revived her health enough that she was able to be listed for a lung transplant. She was fortunate to receive the gift of life on March 15th, 2019, after almost three months in the ICU on a ventilator.
Right from the start, my dad and I found a short-term rental and rooted ourselves in the midst of the chaos. I returned to my home in Washington state briefly but spent the better part of six months living in San Francisco caring for my mom before and after her double-lung transplant.
Once my mom was cleared to return home to the mountains, I also returned home to my husband in Washington state. I am not actively caring for my mom now—especially since we moved to Hawaii—but we still talk about our experience, and my mom’s current health endeavors regularly. My column has been a helpful tool for healing for both myself and my mom.
Would you like to know more about my time as a caregiver? How can I use my experience to support and serve you in the forums? Let me know!
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