Rotary members in the Battlefords heard the compelling story of a Saskatoon man who has a new lease on life thanks to a double-lung transplant.
Dave MacLachlan was the featured speaker at a Rotary luncheon at the Tropical Inn Monday. He was there to talk about the benefits of organ donation, and described how he has benefited from the lung transplants he received.
"It's a great thing, it's a great gift and if you can do it, that's what I'm looking for," said MacLachlan, who wanted to see an improvement from the low numbers of organ donations in the province.
Before his surgery, it was becoming increasingly difficult for MacLachlan, a teacher, to get around. He was using oxygen to breathe.
It was in 2009, when he got a phone call around 3:30 p.m. from the transplant unit in Edmonton that they had lungs available for him.
After quickly shoving articles into a bag, he headed to the airport, boarded an air ambulance, and with his wife Tracy, headed to Edmonton.
Four hours after that phone call he was at the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton, where he was admitted to undergo what would be an intensive double-lung transplant procedure lasting several hours.
He remembers being transported to the operating room and joking with his anesthetist about a line in the Warren Zevon song, Werewolves of London' which goes "stay away from him, he'll rip your lungs out, Jim."
"And that was the last thing I remember," said MacLachlan, before going under the knife.
The recovery from the operation took three weeks, and doctors had to watch out for any complications involving the new lungs, but he then battled an infection that required antibiotics over a period of three weeks. That was followed by an intensive rehabilitation that he still participates in three times a week.
Now, MacLachlan is doing so well he is getting ready to compete in the Canadian Transplant Games in Calgary in July. He told the audience Monday he doesn't quite know yet what he will compete in, but says he might do running or participate in golf.
His situation now is a far cry from what it was for almost a decade before the transplant.
The problems started with MacLachlan's lungs around February 2000, when he was teaching in Asquith. There he was active coaching junior basketball and teaching art and French. He remembered coming down with a horrible cough, along with many other people at the school.
After about a week, everyone's cough cleared up except his. His condition worsened, and after couple of trips to the doctor and an s-ray, he got the bad news that he was suffering from lung disease.
The diagnosis threw MacLachlan for a loop, and he became depressed about it all.
"How did that happen? I quit smoking 15 to 20 years ago," MacLachlan recalled.
It was much later that he learned the type of lung disease he had was non-specific interstitial pneumonia.
He also described suffering from pulmonary fibrosis - the scarring of his lungs.
"With me, I couldn't get enough air," he said.
Life still went on, though. As his disease progressed MacLachlan was able to carry on his activities but found himself increasingly short of breath. He had a slow loss of lung function, he said. He used to be able to sing and could not even get through one line of a song, he noted.
He ended up taking steroid medication that may have helped prolong his life for a little while longer, said MacLachlan. He said he knew the outcome was either dying or getting a lung transplant.
He gradually deteriorated and started using an oxygen tank he carried around. He frequently had to take a rest after doing such routine activities as going up a flight of stairs.
Finally, he was referred to the transplant program in Edmonton, who kept an eye on his situation for about five or six years before the transplant finally happened in 2009.
MacLachlan drew a diagram explaining where the doctors had cut him open for the transplant. The Rotary luncheon audience was filled in on how intensive the 10-hour operation procedure was and how challenging it was for the doctors.
"The surgeon said it was difficult for him," said MacLachlan. "You can imagine what was going on inside of me."
He said there were many potential complications from the procedure - one being that the lung could pop out.
Fortunately, that didn't happen for him.
MacLachlan is grateful for his organ donation. He does not know who his donor was and says he does not want to know
The main message at the Rotary meeting focused on the intense need for organs to be donated.
MacLachlan brought along donor cards and other items for Rotary members and encouraged people to sign them. He noted there was a long transplant waiting list, and said, "Saskatchewan is atrocious for not signing their donor cards."
He said one donor could save six lives.
MacLachlan encouraged prospective donors to discuss the decision it with their family members, making their wishes known so families "wouldn't have to make an agonizing choice."
He told reporters his main message is for "more people to sign donor cards so that more people can be saved through the gift of other people. It's a very selfless thing to do."
MacLachlan said life is now "much better" for him \ and said the same could happen for many other people.
"It's done wonders for me, it's kept me alive," said MacLachlan. "I'm living a full life -pretty much a full life. I can do just about everything I could do before."
