‘A second life, a second chance.’ Tri-Citian back volunteering thanks to double-lung transplant

At the start of last year Tammi Diaz was so short of breath that even walking to her car was an ordeal.

She used a scooter to get around and was on oxygen full time.

Now, four days a week, she’s volunteering at the Sozo Food Bank, having no problem hefting full boxes of food in its Kennewick warehouse.

And one day a month she serves as a dental assistant at Grace Clinic in Kennewick, providing free care to the uninsured.

When she’s not volunteering, she’s chasing after her 5-year-old granddaughter.

A double-lung transplant transformed her into a brand new person, she said.

“Having new lungs is literally a second life, a second chance,” she said. “I’m not going to waste it.”

She is among about 2,500 in the nation who get a lung transplant each year — far fewer than the nearly 25,000 people who receive kidney transplants, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, the nonprofit that serves as the nation’s organ transplant system under contract with the federal government.

The American Lung Association quotes Dr. Ankit Bharat, the chief of Thoracic Surgery for Northwest Medicine in Chicago, saying that a double-lung transplant is generally considered the most medically complex procedure that can be performed.

Living with COPD

Diaz was living life to the fullest until 2010 when she was diagnosed at age 45 with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, she said.

The chronic, progressive lung disease makes breathing difficult and usually ends in death.

She was young for the disease — being age 65 or older is a risk factor. But she was a smoker when she was diagnosed, which is another risk factor.

Breathing became more difficult through the years until she had just 15% lung function in 2019.

“I didn’t have much of a life anymore,” she said. “I was shutting down.”

She was too tired to share in the childhood fun of her older grandchildren.

A planned trip to Disneyland with them didn’t happen when it became difficult just to get to a car to get in it.

Just making her bed or taking a shower drained her energy, she said.

“Before I was just a lump,” she said.

Lung transplant approved

She had to quit her volunteer work at Grace Clinic, and at the food bank she lacked the energy to do more than office work.

She became resigned to dying and said she was at peace with whatever God planned for her. But then she was approved for a lung transplant.

Just five weeks later she was notified that a pair of donated lungs had become available for her at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle.

Three days later she woke up in her hospital bed and took her first deep breath in years.

She felt like the Energizer bunny, she said.

She remained in the Montlake hospital for a month because of a painful complication affecting her digestive system.

But her second day out of the hospital she was able to walk for a mile, she said.

Lung donor family

She takes 17 pills a day now, some of which suppress her immune system and help keep her body from rejecting her new lungs. Every three weeks she has blood drawn for lab work.

She’d like to volunteer more at Grace Clinic, where she previously saw dental patients before having to start using oxygen.

But her doctors are concerned about infections, so she’s compromised by spending just a day a month there.

Her next wish is to meet the family of the person who donated the lungs that have changed her life.

She knows only that the person who died lived in Alaska and may have been young. A nurse commented once that she likely had so much energy because her donor must have been young.

Diaz was required to wait a year after the transplant to fill out a request to meet the donor family.

“My one-year anniversary was also their one-year anniversary for the loss of their loved one,” she said. “I’m really grateful for the family.”

She’s waiting for a reply to see if they would like to meet her.

How to donate

Washington state residents can register to be an organ, eye or tissue donor when they apply for a state driver license or ID card. Their name will be sent to the organ donor registry and driver license or ID card will be marked with the donor symbol.

People can also register online at www.lcnw.org or by sending a letter with your name and address to Attn: LifeCenter Northwest, 3650 131st Ave. SE, Suite 200, Bellevue, WA 98006.

This story was originally published April 25, 2022 at 12:53 PM.