The first annual Lung Transplant Survivors Lunch was held on Saturday in Fredericton.
Survivors of lung transplants, along with many people waiting for transplants met for lunch today to provide support for one another.
NB Lung Association’s director of health promotion Barbara Walls organized the event. She initially started the Facebook group ‘Lung Cancer Support Group NB’ four years ago after realizing many people from the Maritimes were going to Toronto and Montreal for treatment and transplants.
Walls said that aside from bringing people together to share stories and support each other, she wants to raise awareness about the importance of organ donation.
“People think there’s plenty of donors, but there are not. Only ten percent of actual organs that are donated can actually be used,” Walls said.
John Reid had a lung transplant due to his Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Pulmonary Fibrosis.
“I was in Toronto for two years before I got my lungs,” Reid said.
Don Eldridge also attended the lunch. He had a lung transplant in December, 2013. Eldridge says he desperately needed a new lung to help him survive Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis.
“I was diagnosed a year before, and as the year progressed my health deteriorated as well, and then all of a sudden it just went right off the edge,” Eldridge said.
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Eldridge says he was fortunate that he only had to wait six days for a transplant.
Eldridge’s wife Andrea says she feared the worst.
“We took some family pictures. None of us felt we would see him come back alive,” Andrea Eldridge said.
She says it’s a miracle and a blessing her husband is alive and hopes organ donors and their families know how much of a difference they can make.
“Without the donor there’s no way he would be here,” said Eldridge.
Paula Pobihushchy found out a year ago she has a genetic disorder that requires her to have a transplant. She’s waiting for test results and her assessment, but hopes she doesn’t have to wait too long to have surgery.
“It’s scary,” Pobihushchy said.
She says she has good days and bad days, but not being able to work anymore has been difficult.
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