Breath of Fresh Air
Renovo woman back home after double lung transplantBy KEVIN RAUCH — For The Express
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Indeed, for a woman who received a double lung transplant just three months ago, her morning regimen is downright remarkable.
Jessica Calhoun graduated Lock Haven High School in 1998 and about a month before graduation met her future husband Mike Mazzulla, of Renovo. The next few months passed in a bit of a whirlwind.
“I met Mike on my 18th birthday, married him the following January and moved to Renovo,” said Jessica from their apartment on Erie Avenue last week.
A few days after her birthday on May 9, Mike started working at the water plant in Milesburg.
“Just about everything good happened in a one week span 10 years ago,” said Mike.
Those “good” things were a blessing to Jessica, who was born with Cystic Fibrosis, a life-threatening disease that causes mucus to build up and clog some of the organs of the body, particularly the lungs and pancreas.
“I had a pretty normal childhood until I was 15, then the disease really started to take me over,” she said.
She had battled the disease for a dozen years by age 27, but by October of ’07 it had become obvious to Jessica and her loved ones that the disease was gaining the advantage.
“I went into full respiratory failure. I ended up on oxygen 24-seven. I was up to 10 liters of oxygen a day,” she said.
Combined with the scarring and mucus-plugging through the years, her condition put her on the transplant list in October after a visit to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
With no cell phone service in the Renovo area, Mike and Jessica had to limit their travels, always having to be within reach of a phone in case a potential transplant became available in Pittsburgh.
Jessica, who is short in stature, was obviously dependant on a small set of lungs, which doctors said don’t come around too often.
On Feb. 21, the four months of sleeping with one eye open came to an end.
“The phone rang at 3:30 in the morning. It was real simple. They asked, ‘Are you ready?’ and I said, ‘Yes, I’m ready,’” Jessica recalled.
The couple had arranged a trip with Angelflites, a nonprofit group of small plane pilots who take patients to medical visits. After getting on the plane in Lock Haven, the couple made it to Pittsburgh by 7 a.m.
The next 24 hours were just about as hectic for the couple as the week they met. This time it wasn’t jobs and first dates, it was life and death in every sense as new lungs were to be transplanted into Jessica’s chest.
“It was hard ... a lot of sitting around. Every time I got comfortable they would move me somewhere else,” said Mike, talking about the next couple of months.
Although it was Jessica who was having the transplant, Mike has carried Jessica up the flight of steps to their second-floor apartment many times, and now he was asked to simply stand by and wait. It wasn’t easy.
The surgery was a success, but the next couple of months saw several setbacks and Jessica remains frail. But the good slowly outweighed the bad, and the couple eventually made it back home just about two weeks ago.
Jessica said she has had a tremendous amount of support from family and friends.
“I don’t know what I would do without them,” she said with emotion in her soft voice.
Family and friends have also helped financially, holding various fundraisers to help the couple pay the bills.
Mike said the people at work have been great and he has been able to receive days off whenever necessary. The time off, however, was without pay, and bills have piled up as he has tended to his wife in Pittsburgh.
However, Mike said he was just where he needed to be ... with his wife.
Despite having to be on the lookout constantly for infections, Jessica smiled easily when talking about how well she feels overall.
“I just wake up and jump in the shower, no breathing treatments, no carrying oxygen around, the difference is amazing.”
