2nd Place Award
Community Service and Health
National Association of Hispanic Publications.
LOPEZ GIVES UP LUNG TRANSPLANT
Monica Lopez lies in bed next
to oxygen tanks that help make her lungs work-lungs transplanted into
her body more than seven years ago.
Lopez knows she may be lying in her
deathbed. Today may be her last day,or it could come at any moment.
Lopez qualifies for another
transplant, but she decided to decline a second lung transplant so
another person could have the same opportunity to live a few more
years.
“I have seen so many people-so many of
my friends die waiting for a transplant,” Lopez said. “It would be
terribly selfish of me to take another chance. I’ve had my turn.”
Junior Vargas, Lopez’s brother in law
she is a hero in his eyes. “She wants all people to see even in the
last hour, that they can be in good spirits,” he said. “She’s lying
in bed on oxygen and laughing and joking with everyone. I hope people
will learn from her.”
Lopez, a Kansas native, is now at the
University of Kansas Medical Center. She underwent her lung
transplant seven years ago. In April, her body began rejecting the
lungs. Her life has been a struggle since. “One day I was feeling
fine, the next day I couldn’t breathe,” she explained.
But Lopez was never a healthy person.
While growing up in Topeka, Kan., the 47-year-old suffered from
debilitating asthma attacks that would sometimes leave her
unconscious. After the birth of her second child, she went into the
hospital for a routine surgery, but slipped into unconsciousness
before she was even administered anesthesia. When doctors
investigated the cause, they found she had lung disease.
“I told them I had never smoked-how
could I have a lung disease?” she recalled. “It is a rare disease.
They told me I had to stay away from stress.” But Lopez did not have
a stress-free life. Her first husband was an abusive alcoholic. She
divorced him after 18 years. She also suffered a frightening episode
and lapsed into a coma.
“I was in Bethany Medical Center (In
Kansas City, Kansas) and they had called all my friends and family to
say goodbye to me,” recalled Lopez. “I was in a coma, but I could
hear everything.”
She recovered and was then put on the
waiting list for a double-lung transplant. A year later, the call
came at 3 a.m. and Lopez underwent the surgery successfully. Lopez
was not allowed to know who donated the lungs, but she does know her
donor was a woman in her 30’s that died from a gunshot wound to the
head.
Lopez said that she felt tremendous
guilt. “I knew someone had to die so that I may live,” she said.
‘But then, I had to realize that it isn’t personal, it’s just the way
things are. I didn’t get the lungs someone else would have.”
Lopez said that she decided to live
her life to its fullest, playing with her grandchildren, traveling and
just enjoying every minute. She also did some modeling, appearing in
a few commercials and public service announcements for transplant
patients. She believes she had been spared to help other people.
“I want people to remember me by the
people I have helped,” she said. “But I don’t take the credit, I give
God the credit.”
Lopez was familiar with support
groups. She is a recovering alcoholic, sober for nine years and a
member of Alcoholic Anonymous. She decided to start a support group
of her own for transplant recipients. The group is called LUNGS and
deals with recipient’s questions about their guilt.
“They need to know that it’s OK to be
happy, it’s OK to laugh,” she said. Suzie Vargas, Lopez’s sister,
said starting the support group was just one of many things Lopez has
done to try to help others.
“She is always involved in one thing
or another,” said Vargas. “I think of her as a role model, she has
done a lot to try to cushion the blow for her family too.”
“I think she’s a very sweet person,”
said Steven Stites, who has been one of Lopez’s doctors since the
transplant. He is a pulmonary critical care physician. Stites said
he admired Lopez for her decision to not have another transplant.
“She’s been a joy to take care of,” he said. “I have a pretty special
relationship with her and it’s been really difficult to see her not do
so well. We’ve been through a lot together.”
Lopez was one of the first patients
Stites had in Kansas City. Stites said Lopez is trying to comfort her
family. Her biggest concern is what her death will mean to her
grandchildren. “She won’t be there to help support, nurture and love
her grandchildren,” he said.
Sties said after the transplant, Lopez
got involved with other lung and organ donor organizations to
encourage others to sign up. He said she had re-paid her community
several fold. “She’s probably saved a lot of lives,” he said.
Stites said that there is a shortage
of lungs available, in part because they are fragile and hard to
harvest, especially after an accident. Stites said that anyone who
wants to donate their organs should do three things: Tell their family
of their final wishes, have a living will and fill out the back of
their driver’s license to indicate that they want to donate organs.
Lopez knew that the transplant
probably would not give her even the average life span. “The
transplant isn’t a cure, thee could be infection or rejection,” said
Lopez. “They told me I would only get five years, but I got almost
eight and for that I feel lucky.”
Lopez has made her own funeral
arrangements, picked the music, her clothes and even her casket. But
she hasn’t given up. She has had many miracles in her life, and now
she is leaving it up to God when her time is up. “I’m not afraid to
die because I know I will be happy where I am going and I want them to
celebrate my life and not be sad,” she said.
Lopez said that she wouldn’t do one
thing different and has no regrets. “It’s everything in my life that
has made me the person I am,” she said. “I feel I have been truly
blessed.”
NOTE:
Monica Lopez was never able to see this story. She died two days
before it was published in October 2001.
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