Walton is scheduled to return home to her husband and teenage children in suburban Albuquerque shortly after the Barnes-Jewish lung transplant team celebrates another milestone - the 20th anniversary of the first successful human lung transplant.

That transplant was performed on Nov. 7, 1983, at the University of Toronto Hospital, by a team led by Joel Cooper, MD, 64, now chief of the division of cardiothoracic surgery at Barnes-Jewish and Evarts A. Graham Professor of Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine. Also on the team was G. Alexander Patterson, MD, 54, now head of thoracic surgery and surgical director of lung transplant at Barnes-Jewish for the past 10 years and Joseph A. Bancroft Professor of Surgery at Washington University. Dr. Bert Trulock is medical director of the lung transplant program. Dr. Patterson, along with Dr. Bryan Meyers, now perform all lung transplant procedures at Barnes-Jewish.

Until the historic 1983 surgery, lung transplant was considered the final frontier of organ transplant surgery. Because of the fragility of the lungs and the lack of effective, safe immunosuppressant drugs, 44 previous attempts at lung transplant had been unsuccessful. Dr. Cooper said months of research by the transplant team in the laboratory, operating room and clinic, plus the development of the immunosuppressant cyclosporine, prepared the team for their successful transplant attempt.

"Why were we the first to be successful?" Dr. Cooper said. "Quite frankly, I felt if after all the preparation and research we had done, if we we''re able to do it, then perhaps it couldn''t be done."

In 1988, after a number of successful transplants in Toronto, Dr. Cooper moved to Washington University and the former Barnes Hospital. Dr. Patterson came to the program in 1991. The transplant team has developed the standard surgical techniques, medical treatment and pulmonary rehabilitation used by most successful lung transplant programs in the world.

"With more than 700 transplants, we have become, without a doubt, the most active adult lung transplant program in the country," Dr. Patterson said. "And our high volumes translate into outcomes that are among the best in the world."

"We have talented, dedicated physicians, surgeons and staff. The hospital and university have been very supportive. And the staff - the coordinators, the nurses, the therapists - the people down in the trenches doing the work day-to-day are all dedicated and deserve credit for our success."

One of the therapies developed by the team was the use of lung transplant to treat cystic fibrosis patients like Jan.

"Before 1983, a cystic fibrosis patient like Jan had no options," Dr. Patterson said. "Patients universally died of massive lung complications, awful infections."

Now, said Dr. Cooper, lung transplant offers cystic fibrosis patients a treatment that can give them healthy lungs and chance to return to a normal life.

Jan''s disease had gone undetected and misdiagnosed much longer than most cystic fibrosis patients. As a nurse in the military, Jan had always been active. Her first inkling of her condition came when she coughed up blood after a long run. At the time, doctors determined that she had chronic bronchitis.

But as her lung symptoms worsened and she was admitted to the hospital with pancreatitis, she suspected she might have an underlying condition. At age 35, after doing her own research, she convinced her doctors to test for cystic fibrosis.

The test came back positive. Ironically, the disease, which is the most common fatal genetic disease in the white population, is usually detected in childhood and often kills its victims by 35.

Her disease, which had been relatively mild, began to progress rapidly, destroying Jan''s lungs and causing her to be on supplemental oxygen around the clock. When it became apparent that transplant was her only hope for survival, she began to research transplant centers.

"I saw that Barnes-Jewish and Washington University had far and away the most experienced center for transplant in the country," she said. "There was a center closer to home. But I decided to come here anyway, for this was where the experts are."

Jan moved to St. Louis in March after being on the transplant waiting list for almost two years. On Aug. 16, donor lungs became available and transplant surgeon Bryan Meyers, MD, performed the six-hour operation. She left the hospital nine days after the surgery.

An unexpected and apparently unrelated gallbladder attack resulting in gallbladder surgery has delayed her return to New Mexico. But Jan is confident that she''ll be home for the holidays.

"I couldn''t cook before. I was too exhausted. So we''d usually go out to dinner," she said. "My family got tired of it, and so did I. So I''m planning a big Thanksgiving dinner - turkey with all the trimmings. I''m going to buy the pies for dessert, though.

"And I can''t wait to go skiing," she said. "There''s just nothing like zipping down the mountain, with the wind hitting you in the face."

As far as leaving her medical celebrity behind her in St. Louis, Jan just laughs.

"I never knew I was a celebrity," she said. "But, after the transplant, I do feel lucky."