How generous stranger saved Ipswich man Don McCarthy with gift of breath

An Ipswich man has defeated the odds — his dire two-year prognosis now a hopeful future thanks to his wife’s determination to help him live and a generous stranger’s gift of life.

Six months after Ipswich man Don McCarthy’s cough began, he was told he had two to three years to live - that was until he was gifted a new lung.

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A respiratory specialist diagnosed Mr McCarthy with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) – a condition that scars a person’s lungs and reduces the efficiency of their breathing – and told him nothing could be done to stop the illness from progressing and, eventually, killing him.

The cause of the disease was explained to be mostly unknown, with Don’s environment playing no role in its development.

Shaken by the sudden and cataclysmic news, the 61-year-old went home to Collingwood Park and began drafting his bucket list.

He had three wishes: To buy a brand-new car for the very first time, to see his youngest daughter marry her partner, and to welcome another grandchild into the world.

But Don’s wife Debbie, 55, had other plans. She got to work researching Don’s condition online, searching for answers via Google and various Facebook groups.

“I was up all hours of the night,” Debbie said.

“I did heaps of research but I just kept coming against brick walls.”

Debbie said she discovered some people who had IPF and lived overseas had overcome their illness by undergoing a lung transplant. She raised the possibility with Don’s specialist and said she was essentially “fobbed off”.

“His thoughts were that I’d get lost in the system,” Don said.

Undeterred, Debbie shared a post to a Facebook group for people who had received lung transplants, asking if anyone in it had suffered from IPF.

A bayside couple, Greg and Anne Kepper, responded to Debbie’s call-out and agreed to meet with her and Don for coffee.

Greg told Debbie and Don that he had suffered with the condition until he had a lung transplant seven years prior at the hands of Dr Daniel Chambers in Brisbane’s Prince Charles Hospital.

Debbie and Don immediately reached out to Dr Chambers who, as it happened, had a patient cancellation and was able to meet them the very next day.

Dr Chambers told the couple Don could be eligible for a lung transplant, also offering in the interim that he was conducting clinical trials in treatments for IPF and continuing his research to find a cure.

“He told Don, ‘you’re stable at the moment, but as you deteriorate we’ll look at putting you on the transplant list’,” Debbie said.

“We walked out of there and we just felt like the (weight of) the world was off our shoulders.”

Following the appointment, Don’s condition quickly worsened.

He lost nearly 20kg in weight due to the severe side effects of the medication he was taking to help slow the disease, and ended up with double hernias from coughing.

The McCarthy family, comprising Luke, Chloe, Don, Charlie, Debbie, Cassie, and Benjamin. Picture: Supplied

He was added to the lung transplant waitlist in June and received his gift of life – in the form of a big, healthy lung – in September.

Coincidentally, Greg received his lung transplant on the very same day eight years prior.

Don said the scariest part of the transplant was being weaned off the oxygen he had become completely reliant on to survive, but it was amazing to take that first breath of air on his own.

Although his prognosis is much better than it was pre-transplant, he is not completely in the clear just yet.

There is potential for his body to reject its new lung at any stage, so Don has to be incredibly careful with what he does and consumes. At present, he takes about 30 tablets a day.

Despite this, he has managed to tick a number of items off his bucket list. His youngest daughter recently married her partner and Don became a grandfather for a second time in mid-December.

Don and Debbie welcomed their second grandchild, little Indie Sheree Dennis, on December 17. Picture: Supplied

“Being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness or disease, you know that you’re eventually going to pass away,” Don said.

“I’m lucky but you think ‘well, why has this thing picked me?’ And it’s just come out of right field.

“Life was good. But then to be hit with this you think, ‘what have I done to deserve this?’”

Debbie said Don’s donor was also never far from her mind, as she knows a family is grieving as hers is collectively breathing a sigh of relief.

“It’s a phenomenal gift,” she said.

Mythbusters

 

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www.donatelife.org

Debbie and Don’s entire family, including their two daughters and each of their partners, signed up to be organ donors after the transplant.

Don said he was incredibly grateful to his donor, the transplant team at Prince Charles Hospital, Dr Chambers, Greg and Anne, his wife and his daughters for their efforts to save his life.

He is now looking forward to spending the rest of his days living the best life he can, travelling with his wife and watching his grandchildren grow up.

It takes just 60 seconds to register as an organ donor.
To register visit: https://www.donatelife.gov.au/join-register