New lungs a breath of fresh air
Alana Taylor was given months to live when her lungs failed two years ago. Now she’s traversing glaciers, Marc Greenhill writes.
Alana Taylor is an unashamed bucket list cliche. Party in Las Vegas – check. Peering into the cavernous Grand Canyon – check. Snowy mountain vistas in Canada – check.
Taylor had every reason to want a highlights reel from her seven-week 30th birthday trip to North America in July. This time two years ago she had just one goal – to survive the agonising wait for a lung transplant.
Her mantra is a simple: ‘‘You can’t enjoy life if you can’t conquer the moments that you want to.’’
The Christchurch early childhood teacher had battled her whole life to stay on top of cystic fibrosis (CF) – an incurable disease that affects the lungs and digestive system. Then in early 2015, a virus caused irreparable damage to her already weakened respiratory system.
At her lowest ebb, Taylor was bedridden, breathing with a ventilator and barely able to dress and feed herself. She could not keep weight on and was wasting away. Her hair was falling out and other internal organs began shutting down.
In March 2015, doctors gave her months to live without a transplant.
‘‘[My body] was saying, ‘she needs new lungs or she will pass’. I had until Christmas.’’
It was not the first time Taylor had faced her own mortality. The median life expectancy for those with CF is about 35 years. The disease had claimed several of her CF friends, some at a young age.
‘‘I’ve been to more funerals than weddings,’’ Taylor said.
She was fully aware getting a transplant would not be straightforward. Lungs are more scarce than organs available through live donation and trauma often rendered those of crash victims unusable.
Taylor refused to consider she might die, describing negative thoughts as a ‘‘poison in your mind’’.
‘‘I talked about my funeral and other factors – you have to be realistic – but everything else was, ‘when I get my new lungs I’m going to do this’.’’
An early morning call in July 2015 proved life changing. The transplant was on.
Taylor and her parents were on the first flight to Auckland. Her three older siblings, who live in Australia, made the emergency dash across the Tasman.
‘‘It was just a surreal feeling. It was like, ‘oh my goodness, this is happening. I’m going to get a whole new life’. I already knew the outcome was going to be amazing.’’
She saw her old lungs for the first time three months after the operation. They looked to her like ‘‘marinated steak’’.
Only a small pocket in the left lung was functioning when they were removed. Taylor’s breathing capacity had been about 18 per cent.
‘‘When you look at those lungs, it’s a shock. Technically, they look like a smoker’s lungs and I was only 28 at the time.’’
Life post-transplant had been ‘‘incredible’’.
She secured a new job – having been forced at the peak of her illness to quit the teaching role she loved – and has become a part-time motivational speaker.
Nearly 30 friends and family joined her for the Las Vegas leg of the birthday trip in North America.
Other bucket list activities Taylor ticked off included ziplining, canoeing and walking on a glacier in the Canadian Rockies.
‘‘[Traversing] the glacier was extremely hard. One of the tour guides said, ‘I can carry you’. I said, ‘no, it’s a goal if I don’t achieve it myself’. I had to prove to everyone I could do it.’’
Taylor is determined to embrace her second chance. It was mostly personal but she felt a debt to her anonymous donor – a woman in her 50s.
She plans to write to the family outlining what she has done in the past two years and has written a poem to her donor that sits in a frame in her living room.
‘‘I’d always want [her family] to know that I’m achieving absolutely everything with this beautiful new life I have, and I’m always going to be grateful to her.’’
Taylor’s prognosis with her new lungs unknown.
She passed the first hurdle at one year post-op. At five years, the risk of rejection decreases further.
‘‘I’m just going to take whatever life gives me . . . [and] enjoy every moment.’’
‘‘You can’t enjoy life if you can’t conquer the moments that you want to.’’ Alana Taylor