Testimonial: my transplant journey

By Mélissa Doyon

My name is Mélissa Doyon and I have cystic fibrosis. In January 2015, I worked 30 hours a week when my lung capacity was just 26%. In May 2015, I had to reduce to 12 hours per week, as the disease was progressing more and more. In August 2015, I stopped working completely. It was a difficult loss to deal with. Afterwards, the tests started to find out if I was a good candidate for the transplant.
I had a first meeting with the transplant team in Montreal in November 2015.
Then, in January 2016, I stayed in Montreal for a week to take some tests that I could not do in Quebec City. In February 2016, the happy news came: I was a good candidate for the transplant. So I was put on the waiting list by Transplant Québec and, in September 2016, I finally received the long-awaited call from the doctor.
Pasquale Ferraro.
That day, I was full of emotions. I got in the ambulance: and my second life was about to begin. I went into the operating room around 4:45 p.m. and left at 11:30 p.m. I was then placed in intensive care and the healing process started. I was first intubated, but the next morning when I woke up, the tube was already removed. I was also kept on an artificial ventilator for 24 hours to allow for my new lungs.
to adapt. It was then removed so that I could learn to breathe properly on my own. On the second day, I managed to walk down the corridor and by the third day, I was leaving the intensive care unit to go up to my room on the 8th floor of Notre Dame Hospital. I was hospitalized for a month and then stayed in Montreal until October, because for the three weeks following my discharge from the hospital, my appointments were weekly.
I returned home at the end of October 2016. Unfortunately, as early as November 2016 and during the two years that followed, I was hospitalized numerous times at the IUCPQ in Quebec City, because I suffer from gastroparesis. The latter was caused during surgery, when the surgeon accidentally caught a small piece of stomach.
Since that day, I have had to live with a gastric jujenostomy feeding tube. I had to be force-fed for a year and a half and now that's when I have to be administered my medications, including anti-rejection medications, because at the end of January 2017, my body decided to reject the transplant.
My dose of cortisone, which is an anti-rejection medication, was then increased and everything was fine.
It has now been four years since I received my transplant and I am getting better every day. I am succeeding in doing
small things, like my weekly cleaning. This year, I even managed to clean the
full spring.
If I can give you one piece of advice, it is to be patient after a transplant. Time works things out and, despite the complications I had, I don't regret my decision in any way.

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