For 24 years, Chris Kinder seemed as healthy as anyone else. Though he had been diagnosed at age two with cystic fibrosis, he grew up in Brussels, Ill., playing sports, lifting weights and helping on the family farm.
"I was really pretty healthy as a kid," he said.
That changed in 2001 when a collapsed lung started a decline in his health that would lead him to become the 800th person to have a lung transplant at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
Over the next five years, Kinder had several more collapsed lungs and serious infections. He was in and out of the hospital. His doctors said he would eventually need a lung transplant.
When Kinder was referred to Washington University physician Daniel Rosenbluth, MD, head of the adult cystic fibrosis program at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, he was on oxygen 24-hours a day and always exhausted. Eating a full meal put painful pressure on his lungs, so he nibbled on small meals throughout the day. The six-foot-one-inch Kinder wasted away to 139 pounds.
The transplant team evaluated Kinder and he was put on the transplant list at the beginning of June. Thirteen days later, Kinder got the call that donor lungs had been located. On June 16, 2005, Bryan Meyers, MD, Washington University thoracic surgeon, performed a double lung transplant on Kinder, making him the 800th person to receive a lung transplant at Barnes-Jewish.
The day after surgery, Kinder was taken off the ventilator. Within days, he was off of supplemental oxygen. Less than two weeks after surgery, he was discharged from the hospital.
Since then, he has been able resume an active lifestyle, playing with his Brittany spaniel and her pups, visiting relatives, even riding a four-wheel ATV on the farm. He''s even regained most of the weight and strength he had lost before the transplant.
"Nothing stops me," he said.
Kinder credits the support of the Dr. Rosenbluth and the rest of the Barnes-Jewish lung transplant team with speeding his recovery.
"Dr. Trulock (Elbert Trulock, MD, medical director of lung transplant) is calm and laid back," Kinder said. "If he runs across a problem, he addresses and moves on."
His coordinator, Carol Miller, RN, stays in touch with him regularly, answering any questions that come up.
"They''re all just really good," Kinder said.
The Washington University lung transplant program is unmatched in its experience treating patients like Kinder. The program was started in 1988 and is one of the most active lung transplant program in the world.
The team continued to innovate and develop surgical techniques and medical regimens that are acknowledged as the gold standard in lung transplant and thoracic surgery.
One of those innovations is the bilateral, sequential lung transplant in which both lungs are transplanted separately, rather than in a single block. This technique significantly boosted the use of lung transplant to treat cystic fibrosis.
The program, now headed by G. Alexander Patterson, chief of cardiothoracic surgery, is recognized as the premier lung transplant program in the world and draws patients from around the globe.
For more information or a referral to a Barnes-Jewish Hospital lung transplant specialist, call 314-TOP-DOCS or toll-free at 866-867-3627.