Helene Campbell, double lung transplant patient gets her first breath of fresh air since surgery

National Post | Blair Crawford


OTTAWA — On Monday, an Ottawa woman drew her first breath of outdoor air since her double lung transplant more than three weeks ago.

Helene Campbell, 21, tweeted a photo of herself wrapped in a patchwork quilt sitting in the sunshine outside Toronto General Hospital.

“Its my first time outside since April 5th, as I received my new lungs on the 6th, feels so great!” Campbell tweeted.

Campbell underwent the difficult surgery on Good Friday when doctors decided she wouldn’t survive with her own rapidly deteriorating lungs. Campbell suffered from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable and degenerative lung disease. She and her mother, Manon, had been in Toronto since January, waiting for a donor’s lungs to become available.

Read more: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/01/double-lung-transplant-patient-gets-her-first-breath-of-fresh-air-since-surgery/

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