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At 4 a.m. on Aug. 13, 2008, Nate Nicholson awoke to the sound of a beeper he had received from the transplant team at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.
A new set of lungs had become available and there was no time to lose.
Nicholson got up as quickly as he could--he was weak and tethered to oxygen. He had lost 60 pounds because he didn't have the strength or appetite to eat well and he was homebound, unable to get out of bed some days.
Now he needed an operation that he hoped would give him a new life. He was terrified. It was a big surgery-one that would require the focused efforts of an entire team of physicians, surgeons, and nurses for the next 24 hours.
For a few quiet moments he took it all in--his home, his music, his life.
"I had asthma as a kid," Nicholson explains. "Five years ago I thought it was flaring up. It was getting harder to draw a clean breath and the difficulty wasn't going away."
When inhalers and other medications failed to ease his discomfort, doctors in his hometown of Davenport, Iowa, referred him to pulmonary specialists at UI Hospitals and Clinics. Nicholson's "asthma" was beginning to look like something far more serious.
During a clinic visit, he learned that his lungs had scar tissue that was making it hard for them to absorb oxygen. The scar tissue was building and, without treatment, would eventually smother him.
The official diagnosis was idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis--which meant simply that his lungs were scarring for no known reason. He wasn't a smoker and no one else in his family had the disease. There was simply no good explanation, and the only treatment was lung transplantation.
"I'm still really bugged not knowing what caused this disease," Nicholson says.
By early afternoon the day of his arrival at UI Hospitals and Clinics, the procedure was under way. When he woke up that night, he knew right away his life had changed. He wasn't on oxygen--he could breathe.
Today, except for a little chest soreness, Nicholson feels good. He is traveling again--to Nashville to fill in on guitar for a group; to New Jersey to be with his family, and to Anaheim for a music convention. He is back teaching guitar at Griggs Music and playing again with his band, the Funktastic Five.
To protect his new lungs, Nicholson follows a strict medical regimen that includes anti-rejection medications that suppress his immune system. This makes him more susceptible to simple infections. He washes his hands often and has asked his students' parents to keep them home on days they aren't feeling well.
"The kids ask about it," he says. "They want to see the scars."
Nicholson is writing a letter to be delivered by the UI transplant team to the family of the lung donor who saved his life. He may never meet the family--it's up to them--but he hopes it will convey his feeling of sincere gratitude.
Nate Nicholson, 41, was UI's 10 th lung transplant recipient during 2008. The UI lung transplant program was Medicare approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in February 2009. It is the only approved program in Iowa and Nebraska.
--Bill Radl
Lung Transplant Team
- Medical Director
Julia Klesney-Tait, MD
Assistant professor of medicine
- Surgical Director
Kalpaj R. Parekh, MD
Assistant professor of cardiothoracic surgery
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