A Covid Patient Goes Home After a Rare Double Lung Transplant

Before her illness, she worked full-time and enjoyed running and playing with her two small, scrappy dogs. Now, she still feels short of breath, can walk only a short distance and needs help to shower and stand up from a chair. The dogs were overjoyed at her homecoming, but their energy was a bit much. Her mother, who lives in North Carolina, took time away from her job at a meatpacking plant and traveled to Chicago to help her recover.

Ms. Ramirez said she was learning to use her new lungs and getting stronger every day.

She is looking forward to getting back to work, but she still has a way to go. Her family is assisting her, and a friend started a GoFundMe page to help pay the bills.

“I definitely feel like I have a purpose,” Ms. Ramirez said. “It may be to help other people going through the same situation that I am, maybe even just sharing my story and helping young people realize that if this happened to me it could happen to them, and to protect themselves and protect others around them who are more vulnerable. And to motivate and help other centers around the world to realize that lung transplantation is an option for terminally ill Covid patients.”

The outlook for Ms. Ramirez is good, Dr. Bharat said, because she is young and healthy. She will be on anti-rejection medicines for the rest of her life. Transplanted lungs can still be rejected, he said, but he has seen some last 20 years. And patients may be able to receive a second transplant.

“I think from now on she’ll continue to get stronger and stronger,” he said. “She asked if she could go skydiving. We’ll probably get her there in a few months.”