A Normal Life, Regained

Center for Acute Respiratory Failure

Nichele Calhoun, 34, was five months pregnant when she learned she had pulmonary hypertension ─ abnormally high blood pressure in the arteries of the lungs, which makes the right side of the heart work harder than normal. She had felt fine. But a few weeks after her son was born in fall 2010, she found it challenging just to get out of the car.

In the months to follow, ordinary tasks such as getting herself dressed became extraordinarily difficult. "When I was getting dressed to go out and celebrate my 33rd birthday, it took me nearly two hours, because it was so hard to breathe," recalls Ms. Calhoun, a licensed practical nurse who lives in Amityville, Long Island. Her life was spent in and out of the hospital from then on. She traveled with portable oxygen and found it difficult to take just a few steps.

By early March 2012, she had developed heart failure, and her kidneys began to shut down. Doctors told her she likely needed a lung transplant, but this was not an option if she went on dialysis for her kidney failure. Her only other option was ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), which she began receiving at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center ─ a leading center for the delivery of this lifesaving approach.

It was a fearful time. Ms. Calhoun's baby boy and 16-year-old twins were looked after by her fiancé, Joseph. When Joseph had to leave town to help care for his family, Ms. Calhoun's younger sister, Amber, stepped in. "Amber is my rock," says Ms. Calhoun, who lives with her sister today.

She was awake during the entire time she received ECMO ─ 19 days, the longest to date for a patient at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia ─ and walked up to a half mile every day in the hospital to maintain her fitness for a lung transplant. "I was so happy on the ECMO," she asserts. "I felt the best I had felt in a long time. I was ready every morning to get up and go."

There were times she wasn't certain if she would survive to raise her children, however. In fact, there came a point during the ECMO treatment that she developed a blood clot, and doctors told her she might have to be taken off the machine. But fate stepped in: a set of donor lungs became available the next day, and she had her lung transplant on March 20, 2012.

In August 2012, Ms. Calhoun's family threw her a Celebration of Life party. Her father flew in from California. Aunts came in from Texas. Relatives converged on Long Island from all over the country for a different kind of family reunion, one organized to celebrate Ms. Calhoun's new life.

Today she is able to do the things many of us take for granted: Go up and down stairs. Go shopping. Take her son to the park. "I can do everything, and I feel thankful for every day," Ms. Calhoun concludes. "My life is normal again!"