Waiting To Exhale.

Hey, how's it going? You can be honest with me. This is a safe space. Have you heard of life quakes? Well, in this podcast, we talk about life quakes, those unpredictable seismic shifts that in time, lead to profound personal growth and empowerment. Through this season, you can expect heartfelt conversations that reveal both the joy and discomfort of unexpected change. And I think you're going to like it here. My name is Sean, and this is something shifted.

Today's story belongs to Tanya. Where I am now is being listed for my second double. I'm transplant. That's next.

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That's right shifters, go get it. That's Uk'otoa and use the code hash shift 50 at checkout, exclusive to something shifted listeners and get 50% off your first order. On average, we breathe in about 11,000l of air every day. That's a lot of breaths, especially considering that the average lung capacity for a healthy adult is about six litres. Air comes in, air grows out, oxygen is absorbed, carbon dioxide is released. This is the essence of breathing.

And most of us do this naturally without giving it a second thought. Did you know that by the time you celebrate your 25th birthday, your lungs have fully matured? And while lung capacity varies from person to person, a healthy adult will have at least 80% lung capacity. But sometimes a body doesn't develop along these milestones. Tanya has struggled to breathe since the day she was born. And I was always in hospital. Panorama hospital was my second home.

Literally, I would catch up with homework. Um, I'd go to school when I could. I would go to school with a nebulizer. I had this kind of a wheezing sound, like a hole. And your kids can be cruel. I couldn't do sports, but my parents made it, made it very comfortable for me. Tanya suffered a meconium aspiration

as a newborn and then multiple severe viral infections during childhood. This left her with a severe airflow limitation as well as chronic lung disease. She was diagnosed with bronchiolitis, obliterates, and essentially the narrowing of Tanya's airways just couldn't be reversed with medication. I didn't think I was different. I just realized that my friends could do more than what I could. I never really had what other kids had. I could never run around or, um, experience what my my friends

experienced. Tanya's parents did everything they could to help their three children along in times of sickness and in health. And fortunately for Tanya, her mom was also a nursing sister. My mother kind of taught me how to deal with my with my condition. If it weren't for her, I don't think I would have been able to cope as well as what I have all these years with my disease. You know, although they are still amazing parents. Honestly, my mother never

treated me any differently. We were all treated the same. My brother, my sister, myself, we were all treated the same. So I had a good childhood, I really did, but I do think sometimes I kind of looked at my brother or my sister and thought, sure, if they're going out tonight, I wish that was me. But you get used to it, you know, and you just get on with it.

So that's what Tanya did. She just got on with it. Considering her diagnosis and years of health challenges, she got on with living her life, all the while believing that she wouldn't ever find love. That's until she met Sculk. We were always told we couldn't have children. They got married in 2002. Because of violence. And then at one point I went to my doctor and I said to him, I need to have a child.

I need as victor, Minnesotans would be spoken about this and I'm like, I know, but I think we should give it a go. And he's like, okay, I'll give you three months. And I fell pregnant within those three months. So it had to happen. I mean, it was definitely a miracle, yo, I was admitted at 26 weeks and I lay on oxygen for seven weeks, and Daniela was 33 weeks. Prim. Um, and she was in ICU for about three and a half weeks. So, you know, it hasn't been easy, but it's a miracle from God.

It's my gift. Um, and I'm very, very proud. In 2008, Tanya's dream of motherhood came true, and she continued getting on with life in spite of her decreasing lung capacity. I was used to battling. I was used to not having a lung capacity that everybody else out there had. But there was a point after Daniel's birth that I was more in hospital than out of hospital. And I remembered Doctor Johan Trehan.

He's a Panorama pulmonologist. He came and sat down with Scott myself and said, had we ever thought of a double lung transplant?

By 2017, Tanya had only 14% lung capacity. Keep in mind that healthy adult lungs hold six liters of air, and at this stage, Tanya's lungs had a capacity of less than one liter. Since the early 1990s, more than 25,000 lung transplants have been performed at centers around the world, and almost 5000 lung transplants were performed globally in 2017 alone. But a double lung transplant had never been done in Africa. In February of 2017, Tanya's uncle passed away that same year.

Just a few months later, her brother Mark died after a tragic accident. Can you imagine having to tell your family, who've already lost so much in the space of one year, that you need a bilateral lung transplant? And not only is this a high risk up, it'll be the first operation of its kind to be carried out in a state hospital on the African continent. We had so much to process because we had to talk to my parents. We had to talk to Daniella. She was only nine at the time.

We had to talk to Scope's parents. We came home, we Google it like, you know, we all do. And the chances are and like Greg told us, with double and transplantation, it's a 5050. But I knew that I had to fight for my family, and I needed to fight for my little girl. Um, and I needed to fight for my hubby. And lastly, I really needed to fight for my parents. And that was my only alternative. That was my only option. That's all I could do.

Transplant operations are always high risk and come with long term consequences. But thankfully, Tanya's double lung transplant went well. I, for the first time, had a lung capacity of 85%. So from 14% when I had my transplant to post-transplant 85%, I thought this was amazing. I couldn't believe this is how you people could breathe, and also the fact that you could actually do things and not get short of breath.

That for me was pure. It was amazing. Um, and I looked at my hubby and I said to him, I don't ever want to go into rejection because I don't ever want to go back to where I was. And so Tanya got on with living life with lungs full of air. I could stand on the side of the astro and shout and cheer and, um, some of the parents would actually say, sure, here's the mum with the big lungs. And I'd actually smile because it's the first time that people could actually hear me, um, shout and scream.

And I was able to be a wife to my husband, which I always felt I could never do 100%. Um, I could be a daughter to my parents. I if they were sick, I could help them out. I could go out with friends and not worry about of moving sick. Because if I get sick, Milan functions dropping. The thing about life is there are no guarantees you might survive one life, quake, rebuild and get on with it. But that doesn't protect your foundations from being shaken to the core again.

I fell sick and when I got to the hospital and I sat in front of the doctor and I said to him, I can't breathe, I need oxygen.

In December of 2023, after six years of big, deep, life affirming breaths. Tanya's biggest fear became a reality. She was diagnosed with chronic rejection and at the time of this recording in 2024, she's on the waiting list for her second double lung transplant. Join my mailing list 321 shift for inspiration and motivation straight to your inbox, and you can find me on Instagram at Sean Lewis. Remember to share this episode with someone you love and follow something

shifted on your favorite podcast player. Okay, back to the story. We all love a feel good story of overcoming a challenge. We want the battle to be won. Our hero deserves a break. But after beating her life threatening illness, Tanya needs to get back into the ring, raise her gloves and fight another round. Two years after my first transplant, I was able to climb Lion's Head and I

was smiling from ear to ear. Like me. For now, I'm sitting here, so I'm breathing very nicely, but the minute I start moving around I get very short of breath. Yesterday, hubby was out on a meeting and I had to bring in a package and I battled just to get the package from my front door to my kitchen and I was completely out of it. And I'm going to I'm going to be very honest with you. I took breathing also for granted when I had my transplant

because I was breathing. I couldn't believe the way I was breathing. And now all of a sudden I realized, sure. Um, even someone like me that sparkled before took it for granted. So I can understand why people do take it for granted. Dealing with a chronic illness is never easy. Any hospital visit, even for a scheduled procedure, is a major stressor and completely disrupts your life. Now, I imagine not knowing when this quake is going to hit you. Tanya learned this during her

first transplant. You can get that call at any moment. So I think when you see the doctor's number come up on your phone, you kind of know what that call's all about. I got the call on a Sunday afternoon, and I was told I had two hours to get to the hospital. So you you don't really have much time to process it. Um, and it's a very emotional feeling. Um, I to for my parents, I different schools parents. My parents came down to my house and helped me pack and we, uh, went to the school.

My, um, organ donor was on a ventilator. So I was actually very lucky in the fact that I had time to prepare myself in the hospital. When I got there, the doctors had time to explain everything to us again, explain everything to Daniella and my parents and skulk. But it could happen. And it's obviously happened to a lot of people that it happens within the first six hours of that phone call, because lungs can only be on ice for six hours. After that, they battled to

start functioning again. Once you know they transplant. Quite a few have passed away due to rejection complications after surgery. You know, at like Prof. Greg Caligari always tells us and they have to be so upfront. They have to be they have to be honest with you and they have to tell you like it is. There's a 5050 chance. So you know that when you go in for the surgery, but it's still a big shock.

I mean, when I was told I have chronic rejection, although Greg has warned us some you don't want to go through as a transplant patient. Tanya finds herself back in this weird waiting room, waiting for that life changing call. That call that always means another family has suffered a tremendous loss. And Tanya also knows the pain of that loss Well, because when her brother passed away in 2017, they honored his decision as an organ donor.

I wouldn't be able to sit here today with you and discuss it if it wasn't for my organ donor. For a woman that's given a selfish gift. She doesn't know me from a bar of soap, but she has given me the best gift ever. And I think that's why I really go out there and try and just help people understand about organ donor awareness. And I know it's a very sensitive topic because a lot of people will be like, oh no, I'm not going to let them cut up my loved ones body or but

they do it in such a dignified way. And I really I can vouch for that because my brother was an organ donor. I, I think I just needed comfort, I needed closure, I needed to see his body once he passed. And unfortunately, with the way monkey fell, he couldn't give any organs. Um, so he was able to donate tissue, but he was able to help 26 people by just giving tissue. Tissue meaning heart valves,

skin, corneas, tendons, muscle. And when I saw him, Sean, they had already taken what they could from above. It looked as though he was just asleep. You know, this perfect being. Just sleeping. So that's why I can really, honestly say that they do it in a really respectful and dignified manner. Um, it's not what people think about cutting up the body. It's not like that at all. You can help up to 50 people by just giving tissue, and you can save up to seven people,

but just donate the organs. So I mean, it's lungs, it's pancreas, it's liver, it heart, it kidneys. And I mean, some of those, you know, kidneys your sibling could give you you know, you don't necessarily have to pause. I just think I've I've just got this passion that I just want people to know how amazing we as recipients find us. Um, and we just would like people to think about it. Just think about it a little more.

Tanya has used the gifts she's been given to pay it forward and help others who have to face the challenges of living with a transplant. The reason why I try and go out there and talk about organ donation, um, is because not enough is being said about organ donation. So much has been said about the blood drive. Um, nobody really knows what organ donation involves. Like I said, I know it's a sensitive

subject. I really do know that. Um, and then I, I try and get funding for healthcare, and I'm not doing that for the hospital. I'm doing it merely for the patients because we have a lot of expenses after surgery. We go see our doctor twice a week for the first month, and we have a blood test and probably every second or third day. Medication is insane, and I feel that when you've had such a big operation and you're lying in ICU, you need to fight, and the only way you're going to fight is if you

have your loved ones around you. So if I can get money in to fly those loved ones down from wherever they are to be with a person lying in ICU fighting for their life, then I think that's a huge accomplishment in itself. And then we need to find accommodation for those people. They need food. Um, and the patients after transplant as well. Like I say, we see the doctor twice a week for the first month. So those patients need accommodation. They need food.

A lot of them can't go back to work. Um, because our immune systems are so compromised. The immune suppressants or hectic, um, we are medication for the rest of our lives. We have bloodstone every 3 to 4 weeks for the rest of our lives. So I try and raise funds for the kids heart and lung transplant unit for patients. I think because I've realized how life changing it is to have a transplant, to be able to do things that I was never able to do before. And that's what's encouraging for me.

So while Tanya waits for a call, a call to say that they're ready to do another transplant, which comes with all the risks and the 50% survival rate, she's grateful for every single breath.

I cannot thank my organ donor enough. Because this woman that I'm able to watch my daughter grow up and watch my family and be with my family every day. You know, I think a lot of people get up every morning and they take it for granted, but I don't I get up every morning and thank my woman donor and I, you know, we had to write a letter to our donor's families and say thank you. How do you think someone for losing a loved one so that you might be saved?

And I think that was the hardest thing for me to do. Over and above the organ donation. Tanya also received the gift of watching her daughter grow up, and of all the experiences in her life, this is her greatest joy. I think every parent thinks the kid is amazing, but I really think I've got an amazing daughter. Um. She's 16. She's been through so much, yet she's still so resilient and she's got a heart of gold and she's empathetic. And Sean, she's just been absolutely amazing

with how she's handled everything. I think you know that that is my proudest thing in life is, is my daughter. My mom would always say to me, Tonya, don't get your illness define you as a person. Fight. And I've always fought. At the time of publishing. Tanya Bothma is still waiting to be matched with an organ donor. Tanya is currently raising money through back a buddy to support other transplant patients with increased need, and continue creating awareness around organ and tissue donation.

You can support the work that Tanya is doing by visiting the back of Buddy page. The link is in the show notes. On the bottom of my lungs. A very big thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of Something Shifted. And remember to use that code hash shift 50 at checkout when you place your first order with Uk'otoa. That's the hash symbol, followed by the word shift shift and the numerals five zero, and

you'll get 50% of your first order. Go ahead and tap the three dots inside the app you're listening on and give this show five stars on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And when you do, you can imagine me doing a happy dance and grinning from ear to ear. Thanks so much for listening and a very big thank you to my executive producer, Rwanda Lewis. Follow something shifted on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player and share this episode

with your friends and family. You can find me on Instagram at Shawn Lewis and the mailing list is 321 shift, which gives you three things for your mind two things feel buddy and one thing for your soul, plus a few little fun surprises every second Sunday. I've made it really easy and included the links in this episode. Show notes. Thanks again for believing in possibility. My name is Shawn and this is something shifted. See you in two weeks. Bye.