Fawn Kruger is celebrating a massive event this year. It’s her 10-year Lungavessary. Only 22 lung-transplant patients in South Africa have reached this milestone! And in 2023, Fawny will become number 23.
Johannesburg, South Africa ( February 2023) – Fawn Kruger is a seemingly normal 35-year-old woman living in Johannesburg. She is married, has four pets, owns her own business and frequently socialises with her friends. What makes Fawn different is that ten years ago, both her lungs were removed and replaced with a stranger’s lungs in an effort to save her life.
Fawn was born with a genetic disease called Cystic Fibrosis.
This degenerative illness is a lifelong burden that requires non-stop invasive treatment. The disease affects various organs but the most life-threatening is the lungs which are filled with a thick sticky mucus that slowly kills off the lungs until the patient cannot breathe anymore.
“It’s like having a constant bronchitis infection every day of your life – it’s exhausting and painful,” Fawn says.
The F508del Cystic Fibrosis mutation affects 86.4% and the G542X affects 4.6% of all mutations. Most patients have 2 F508del genes but Fawn has 1 of the F508del and 1 G542X gene, which is a far more severe mutation to treat.
You can listen to an interview with Fawn Kruger (née Rogers) below:
Fawn was born in Zimbabwe and was diagnosed with ‘CF’ when she was one years old. Her daily treatments were a combination of digestive enzymes with every meal and nebulising twice a day with chest physio. By the time she was 13 years old, she was spending two weeks in a hospital having Intravenous antibiotics every three months. This was hugely disruptive to her life and her lungs were only getting worse.
“I couldn’t plan anything with my friends because I never knew how I would be feeling by the time the date would come around. I missed so many special occasions because I was either in hospital or just not well enough to attend.”
Eventually her lungs deteriorated to a point where she could no longer breathe without being connected to an oxygen machine 24 hours a day.
“I’d take the oxygen tubing off to wash my face and my lips would immediately start going blue and I felt lightheaded”.
She had an oxygen tube in her nose, a feeding tube surgically inserted into her stomach, an insulin machine attached to her and her portocath in her neck to allow for vein access for medication. At this point she was listed for a double lung transplant.
What is a lung transplant?
It’s a (long) surgical procedure to replace a diseased or failing lung with a healthy lung, usually from a deceased donor. A lung transplant is reserved for people who have tried medications or other treatments, but their conditions haven’t sufficiently improved. Depending on your medical condition, a lung transplant may involve replacing one of your lungs or both of them.
Who can get a lung transplant?
A lung transplant isn’t the right treatment for everyone. Certain factors may mean you’re not a good candidate for a lung transplant. A full evaluation is done beforehand and essentially you need to be ‘healthy’ enough to survive the surgery. With lung transplants, you are only considered when the transplant team estimates you have less than two years to live. This is rather scary considering some patients wait four or more years for lungs.
How long do transplanted lungs last?
The survival rate for 1 year is 79.5%
Up to 5 years is 50.6%
And 10 years is 30.4%
Why do lung transplants fail?
-Risk of rejection
Your immune system defends your body against foreign substances. Even with the best possible match between you and the donor, your immune system will try to attack and reject your new lung or lungs. The drug regimen after transplant includes medications to suppress your immune system (immunosuppressant medications) in an effort to prevent organ rejection. You need to take these anti-rejection drugs (on time) for the rest of your life and unfortunately, they hold a host of side effects.
-Risk of infection
Anti-rejection drugs suppress your immune system, making your body more susceptible to infections, particularly in your lungs. These infections can be life threatening and they can also bring on rejection.
In March 2013 Fawn was told they had found a match for her and she could finally have the surgery to replace her lungs. The 8-hour procedure left her in hospital for three months recovering from a number of complications. Once she was discharged from hospital it took Fawn about a year to build up the mental and physical strength she had lost over the years. From there it was up and up as she enjoyed doing things she could never do with her ‘original’ lungs.
“I’ve had so many firsts over the last 10 years and I’m so grateful to my donor for giving me a chance to truly experience life for the first time”.
Every year Fawn celebrates her ‘Lungaversary’ and this year is no different. She plans to invite all her friends, family and some of her medical team to join her as she commemorates the occasion.
Fawn co-founded TELL in as a way to increase the number of transplants that take place in SA.
“One of the hardest parts of this disease is losing friends who didn’t get a transplant in time,” she says.
She has asked all her guests to make a donation to TELL in lieu of gifts at her 10-year Lungaversary party. Her goal is to raise R10,000 to assist TELL in their continued efforts to educate both the public and medical professionals about organ donation, as well as providing patients with support. If you would like to make a donation then please use the Backabuddy link.
Or the banking detail below:
TELL NPO
First National Bank (FNB)
Account type: Cheque
Account no: 62818725775
Branch code: 250655
Reference: 10YOURNAME
Swift code: FIRNZAJJ