A 26-year-old woman with cystic fibrosis successfully received her third pair of donor lungs after begging doctors to take her case and give her another shot at life.
Taylor Stephenson — whose own lungs were damaged beyond repair by the genetic disorder as a teen — was devastated to learn that her second transplanted lungs were in rejection in April 2023.
“I was always told that two [lung transplants] was it,” she told The Post Thursday. “I balled my eyes out.”
By September, Stephenson was at 14% lung capacity. Then it dropped to 8% after she caught the flu.
“I thought I was dying,” she said in a phone interview. “I don’t know how I held on.”
Stephenson overcame the flu while living in Dallas, where she got her second transplant, before uprooting her life 17 hours to Durham, North Carolina where she was accepted at Duke University Hospital for her third transplant.
But before a match could be found, she was forced to use an oxygen tank and suffered from severe fatigue and loss of appetite as her body continued to reject her transplanted lungs.
Despite her frail condition, Stephenson went through more than a dozen cardio-therapy sessions — which include walking, biking and strength conditioning exercises — as lung recipient candidates must be in good shape before the transplant.
She was required to go through 23 of the sessions to even get her name on the transplant list but doctors were able to convince a transplant committee to accept her after just 17 and he was officially added on Nov. 29.
More than a month passed and a new year came until finally, on Jan. 13, she received a call around 11 a.m. that an available set of lungs was a potential match.
By 1 p.m. the same day, Stephenson was heading to the hospital hopeful for a third chance of survival.
But doctors would still have to look at the lungs with their “naked eye” to see if they thought they were suitable. Shortly before 5 p.m., doctors greenlit the donor organs and Stephenson was prepped for surgery an hour later.
While in surgery, doctors discovered the difficulties that come with a third-time transplant recipient.
Stephenson had a large amount of scar tissue and bleeding from her previous transplants and was forced to go back up to the ICU “open-chested,” meaning doctors did not close her back up before bringing her to intensive care.
She would be “open-chested” for roughly 12 hours while doctors worked to stop the bleeding and she was stable enough to go back into surgery, where they successfully transplanted her new lungs.
Still, the struggle was not over.
Two days later, Stephenson faced another complication after doctors found a blood clot in her lower right lung. Fortunately, they were able to successfully remove it through her back.
On Valentine’s Day, she underwent her first biopsy post-transplant and was told she wasn’t showing any signs of rejection. She is currently at 50% lung capacity and climbing.
“Truly cannot put into words how smooth everything has been,” Stephenson said of her post-surgery experience, especially when comparing it to her second transplant, where she suffered a third-degree burn and had signs of rejection by the first biopsy.
As Stephenson gears up for her three-month biopsy in April, she is also preparing to climb three mountains — a goal she hopes to accomplish with her new set of lungs.
“I’m going to do it,” she said determinedly.
Stephenson was only 16 when she received her first lung transplant at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in 2015. Her body began rejecting those lungs about four years later in 2019.
But at that point, she was no longer a minor and couldn’t return to St. Louis for a second transplant. She ended up at UT Southwestern in Dallas, who initially rejected her plea to get the procedure done as they like to “stick to people they’ve done in the past,” Stephenson said.
After pleading with the hospital, the head transplant surgeon accepted her case. However, that set of lungs would fail her too. Her team did everything they could to reverse the rejection, but ultimately couldn’t.
UT Southwestern also rejected to do a third transplant on her, as they’ve never done one before. Her doctors then referred her in August to Duke University Hospital, which has done a total of 13 third lung transplants in the country.
Stephenson said she is incredibly grateful for her care team, especially Dr. Jacob Klapper, who performed the surgery.
“He truly cares,” she said of her surgeon, who she called her “saving grace.”
Stephenson is now hoping to be an advocate for those who are going through the same thing she did.
“I want to share this so far,” she said. “Third transplants are possible.”
The biggest lesson she wants other transplant recipients to know? “Keep fighting.”