Estimated Cost Of Living Donor Transplant: $300,000

Insurance Coverage: No More Than $100,000

Fund-Raising: Various Events Have Raised About $30,000. Family Members Are Considering Home Equity Loans, Liquidation Of Savings And Sale Of Retirement Accounts.

To Help: Send Donations To The Heather Penick Lung Transplant Fund At Wells Fargo Bank, Account Number 79-20845273.

Ted Kirk

Lincoln Journal Star

For months, Heather Penick felt like she was training for the Olympics. She rode exercise bikes. She walked on treadmills. She lifted weights.

But the Lincoln woman suffering from cystic fibrosis was preparing her body for a living donor double-lung transplant, a second chance at life that comes at 6 a.m. today in a Minneapolis hospital.

"I'm a little nervous and excited," Penick said last week before leaving for Fairview-University Medical Center. "This is the kind of the jumping-off point, so it's kind of scary. It's a big undertaking."

A big undertaking for everyone involved - her husband, Phill, and her uncle Don Smith, who will be her lung donors; her family, who will stay in Minneapolis to help during her three-month recovery; and approximately 30 surgeons, nurses and hospital staff who will perform the procedure.

Pioneered by Dr. Vaughn A. Starnes at the University of Southern California in 1993, the living donor transplant involves taking lung tissue from healthy, living donors instead of cadavers. The prognosis for a living donor transplant is as good, if not better, as a cadaveric transplant, doctors said.

Although surgeons have performed 129 living donor transplants at USC, the procedure is still relatively rare in the Midwest. Fairview has done more than 300 cadaveric lung transplants since 1986 - but only one using a living donor.

Still, Penick and her family feel they are in good hands. Dr. Soon Park, Fairview's chief of thoracic surgery, assured the family his staff knows how to handle the potential problems Penick may face because they frequently perform cadaveric lung transplants on cystic fibrosis patients, said Gene Kelly, Penick's father.

"He also said one of his best friends heads the USC program . . .," Kelly said. "I was very impressed with the people up there. They seemed tremendously competent and caring."

The generosity of friends and family also impressed Penick. When she started exploring the living donor transplant option this spring, she thought finding donors would be difficult.

But then came the volunteers: family members, friends - even a man she didn't know. After an intense screening process, Penick's husband and uncle were chosen as the best donor candidates, with her brother-in-law as an alternate.

"I thought (finding donors would) be the really hard part," Penick said. "So I was pretty amazed. It's an amazing thing to be that generous and to give up part of your life and yourself like that."

There was no question in Smith's mind. Penick's uncle helped start the University of Nebraska Medical Center organ transplant program in 1985.

"It was no struggle," Smith said. "I understand what the risks and probability are. It's a low-risk, high-return kind of project. We're looking at three weeks of pain and misery (for the donors) in exchange for a 70 percent chance of living a full, healthy life for Heather."

In a procedure that may take as little as two hours, the right lower lobe of one donor's lungs and the left lower lobe of the other donor's lungs will be given to Penick after her diseased lungs are removed.

Donating one of five lobes will temporarily decrease donor lung function by 15 percent. They can also expect a hospital stay of seven to 10 days and a recovery period of three to six weeks.

Penick may be in the hospital for two weeks - or longer - while doctors stabilize the anti-rejection medications she will need for the rest of her life. She will also continue physical therapy to expand her new lungs' capacity during the three-month recovery period in Minneapolis.

Although her transplant won't allow her to become a world-class athlete, it will let her lead a normal life - without the aid of an oxygen tank or the painful ritual of mechanically vibrating her mucus-filled lungs ravaged by cystic fibrosis.

She hopes to be home by Christmas.

"I'd like to travel without a carload of medical equipment . . .," she said. "I'd like to do physical things like camping. And as far as career goals, I'd like to get involved with something that could help people because so many people have helped me. I think it's a real gift to help people like that."

Reach Theresa Cha at 473-7228 or tcha@journalstar.com.

Copyright © 2000 Lincoln Journal Star.

This article posted October 14, 2000.