{"id":69532,"date":"2015-11-24T08:30:52","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T13:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=69532"},"modified":"2018-04-06T14:53:39","modified_gmt":"2018-04-06T18:53:39","slug":"2nd-lung-transplant-saves-ucf-students-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/2nd-lung-transplant-saves-ucf-students-life\/","title":{"rendered":"2nd Lung Transplant Saves UCF Student\u2019s Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many UCF students are returning home to be with family for Thanksgiving. But for Jordan McCaskill, that trip will hold special meaning. She spent the past two months at Florida Hospital, receiving the second lung transplant of her young life.<\/p>\n

McCaskill, a 20-year-old English major, was born with cystic fibrosis, a genetic disorder that among other things damages the lungs. When she was born, the average life expectancy for someone with the incurable condition was 18 years; it\u2019s now in the mid-40s.<\/p>\n

She received her first lung transplant in December 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201c2014\/early 2015 was the best time of my life,\u201d McCaskill wrote in her blog<\/a>. \u201cI felt normal for the first time. I bought my first car with my own money. I finished a year of college. I finally dated people. I made great friends. I made plans for my future. I finally knew what it was like to live like I had a future.\u201d<\/p>\n

But her body\u2019s immune system began to reject her new lungs. McCaskill had grown up facing her own mortality. The lung transplant brought hope, but as her lung function deteriorated so did her chances of survival.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t know if you\u2019re going to get a second transplant, because it\u2019s risky,\u201d said the Lake Mary High School graduate. \u201cGoing into the surgery, you don\u2019t know if you\u2019re going to get off the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Florida Hospital Orlando, heart and thoracic surgeon Dr. Duane Davis and pulmonologist Dr. Cynthia Gries knew the risks.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecond-time transplants are a lot more complicated,\u201d Davis said. \u201cThere are a lot of centers that choose not to do second transplants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, Davis and Gries worked to make sure McCaskill received another set of lungs.<\/p>\n

She went to the hospital for tests Sept. 30, but the tests caused her lungs to fail. She was admitted immediately with the knowledge that she would not survive if she didn\u2019t make the transplant list and compatible donor lungs weren\u2019t found.<\/p>\n

In the cardiovascular intensive care unit at Florida Hospital, she was on a ventilator, had two chest tubes and a feeding tube. An extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine, or ECMO, took the place of her lungs by pumping blood from her body, removing carbon dioxide, oxygenating it and pumping it back in.<\/p>\n

Finally, the life-saving second transplant came Oct. 28. The eight-hour surgery was successful, but McCaskill has remained in the hospital ever since as she recovers, regains her strength and learns to breathe on her own again.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s expected to be released in time to join her family in Maitland for Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thankful for both my donors and both my doctors,\u201d she said. \u201c[My doctors] believed in me and gave me a second chance, and I\u2019m grateful for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCaskill is looking forward to being with her family, sleeping in her own bed, her father\u2019s green beans and returning to her job as a server at Bonefish Grill.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also excited about jumpstarting her creative-writing studies at the University of Central Florida. She was forced to elect a medical withdrawal this semester as her health worsened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel great, better than I\u2019ve felt in six months \u2013 I can breathe,\u201d McCaskill said. \u201cMost people don\u2019t have a near-death experience, and I\u2019ve had two. It\u2019s something I don\u2019t take for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many UCF students are returning home to be with family for Thanksgiving. But for Jordan McCaskill, that trip will hold special meaning. She spent the past two months at Florida Hospital, receiving the second lung transplant of her young life. 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