New lungs, new lease of life

Just over two years ago, as she lay in a Johannesburg hospital bed, Fawn Rogers stared death in the face.

Rogers, who was 26 at the time, had suffered from cystic fibrosis — a degenerative disease that affects the lungs — her whole life, and her body was on the verge of collapse. She was permanently attached to an oxygen tank and constantly nauseous. Even getting up to wash her face and brush her teeth was torturous and left her out of breath. Her only hope was a lung transplant.

“As much as the doctors encourage you to maintain hope  ...  they also start preparing you and your family for death,” she said this week.

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Rogers was on the waiting list for new lungs for about a year. “It’s a very difficult time ...  The chances of finding a match in time are slim, and [the odds of] surviving the procedure is also slim. You’re kind of living is this world of balancing hope with reality. It’s a very emotionally challenging time,” she said. 

But on March 5 2013,  doctors found a match and Rogers underwent a “very intensive” eight-hour double lung transplant. She  said she had not been scared.

“You get to a point where it’s a huge relief to get the call that they’ve got organs because, whether you die or live, it’s a relief either way. The fear isn’t really that great,” she said.

After the operation she spent about three months in and out of hospital as part of a “gruelling recovery process”.

“It’s made out as you being very sick and you’re dying, [then] you get new lungs and then you wake up and take a deep breath and run into a field. And it’s really not as glamorous as that. You are a lot worse than you were before for quite a long time, and gradually you start to get better. The recovery is gruelling,” she said.

 Rogers has “dabbled in yoga and Pilates” since the operation to help the recovery process.

“I had 28 years of my body fighting an illness. Unfortunately the procedure doesn’t undo all those years of damage.”

But Rogers said she was  “incredibly happy”, living  her “second chance at life”.

“I’ve got a full-time job, I’m financially independent [and] I can go out with my friends, which I couldn’t do before. I can wake up, brush my teeth, have breakfast and leave the house.”