Respiratory roller coaster

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This article was published 30/07/2023 (800 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If things had gone as expected, Rick Schmidt would have been back in Winnipeg two to three weeks after his lung transplant in Edmonton in April.

Things did not go as expected.

Schmidt, 67, got the call to head to the University of Alberta Hospital for the surgery on April 10 to receive his new lung — it was necessary to deal with his idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), an incurable disease.

He finally got back to Winnipeg on July 6, spending two weeks at Health Sciences Centre under observation and doing physiotherapy before being sent home last Friday.

The transplant surgery was done on April 12; everything went according to plan and it looked as if Schmidt might be able to head home in two to three weeks. Then things went south.

“Everything tanked,” he says.

First off, infections set in — not unusual when organs are transplanted. But then, due to a sapovirus, a common cause of gastroenteritis, his digestive system “went bonkers. I wasn’t doing well.”

Added to this was the time it took for the blood vessels in his new lung to get connected to his bronchial tube. This led to breathing issues, low oxygen numbers and a couple of trips to the ICU. “I was on life support,” Schmidt says of that time.

He rallied, but then went down again. For two months it was up and down.

“I would get better, then tank again,” he says.

Through all the hard times, “I knew I was in good hands,” he said of the transplant team and other hospital staff.

Once through those challenges, it took Schmidt a long time to get back on his feet.

“I was as weak as a kitten,” said the avid biker, hiker and cross-country skier. “I couldn’t get out of bed for weeks.”

Unable to eat, he was fed through a nasogastric tube. “I lost a lot of weight,” he says, noting he was down to 110 pounds from his usual 160 pounds. But now that the feeding tube is gone and he’s eating “real food,” his weight is heading back up.

He’s also up and walking more. “I’m getting stronger every day,” he says.

Looking back, Schmidt admits even though he was warned it would be a hard experience, “physically and emotionally I have never gone through anything remotely like this. Not even my triple bypass. That was a cakewalk compared to this.”

Emotionally and spiritually, he also had some really dark times.

“There were days when I thought, if given a choice to keep going or pass away, I would have chosen death. I had zero capacity to think beyond the next minute or hour.”

He prayed during those dark times. “Not so much in words, something more primal, just a cry out to God.”

Through it all, his wife, Sara Jane, was a rock, he says. She spent most of the time in Edmonton with him, with a week break when other family members came to be with Schmidt.

“She has been a caring and committed partner,” he says, adding she was also very practical and helpful. “I think she could qualify as a health-care aide now” after what she learned while at his bedside.

For Justin Weinkopf, a member of the Edmonton lung transplant team, Schmidt’s story isn’t unique.

“There are always ups and downs for every patient,” he says. “There’s no way to predict what will happen.”

In Schmidt’s case, the slow healing between the new lung and his bronchial tube “made it hard for him to breathe. He needed multiple procedures to deal with it.”

It was hard, but slowly and steadily he battled back. “His challenges in recovery don’t preclude a good outcome, even if it was slow,” Weinkopf says. “I’m optimistic for many good years to come for him.”

Now that he’s finally home, Schmidt said it feels good to know the worst is behind him.

“I know there are no guarantees, but things are looking up. I appreciate so very much everything that was done for me by so many people. They gave me no false promises, no false hope. Everyone was straight and level with me about what it could be like, what could go wrong, right from Day 1. That was very important to me.”

Looking ahead, he will make weekly visits to the hospital for followups, and work at regaining weight and strength. “It’s just one day at a time for the future,” he says, adding he looks forward to hiking and biking again, maybe even cross-country skiing.

“I don’t know how many years I will get out of this lung, but I am thankful for this opportunity to live. It has made me realize how precious life is.”

This is the last in our series about Rick Schmidt’s lung transplant journey. To become an organ donor, visit signupforlife.ca