Double Lung Transplant Recipient Celebrates Second Chance by Running Bolder Boulder – runnersworld.com

Standing with his teenage son at the starting line of a school fundraiser one-mile fun run in May of last year, Tony Hammes glanced over at his wife in the stands, and at the same moment, they both burst into tears.

“We were sobbing, completely emotional,” he told Runner’s World. “I don’t think either of us expected that, but we weren’t totally surprised. It was just an acknowledgement of how far we’d come to get to that point.”

About eight months before that day, Hammes was at University of Colorado Hospital, hooked up to a machine that breathed for him, since his lungs had completely stopped operating—the result of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive disease which leads to scarring of the lungs that started for him in 2011.

In the hospital, the doctor pulled his wife aside and had “the talk,” Hammes said.

“I was at the point where, if they didn’t find a lung transplant donor within 48 hours, I would become too weak for a transplant,” he said. “So, I either got lungs in a day or two, or I’d be put on comfort care.”

By then, Hammes had already been on the transplant list for nearly nine months without luck. To deal with the uncertainty, he did as much as he could to stay healthy, including regular exercise, nutritious foods, and strict adherence to his medication schedule. That gave him a level of control, he remembered, especially as the condition worsened, leaving him on 24/7 portable oxygen.

At his work as a VP for a metal distributor in Colorado, the now-52-year-old struggled through meetings and eventually had to start working more and more from home. Still, he held on to hope that he’d been misdiagnosed, or even that the condition might reverse itself.

“I’m a very optimistic guy,” he said, then laughed. “That’s probably my downfall sometimes. I had a hard time letting go of the belief that it would all fix itself in some way.”

But it didn’t. At the beginning of September 2017, his oxygen cannula wasn’t enough for his failing lungs, and he went into the hospital to await a transplant. Then weeks went by.

Just as that 48-hour clock began running out, the call came in.

He received a double lung transplant, and doctors noted that his generally great health from all those solid pre-surgery habits helped when it came to recovery, resulting in minimal complications.

For months, Hammes did occupational therapy and physical therapy, including time with a respiratory therapist in his home. He laughs about how absurd his body felt after surgery, with arms and legs so weakened that it was like trying to wear a puppet costume.

Courtesy of Tony Hammes

“When I first started walking again, it just looked weird, like nothing was working properly,” he said. “About four months after the surgery, I tried jogging a little and it was the same thing, I was just flailing around. But I kept going.”

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He still felt that way when the day of the fun run arrived, but he took his place at the starting line anyway. With tears streaming down his face, he ran only a few hundred feet, but it felt like he’d crossed the finish at Boston.

“When you have something like this happen, and you focus on recovery, you really only think about the day to day, in many ways,” said Hammes. “You think, what do I need to do today to succeed? What small progress can I make? You try not to think far ahead, so I’d never pictured myself even walking in a race. So to be there, at that moment, was overwhelming. It was fantastic.”

Recounting that experience to friends a few weeks later, Hammes was asked—only partly in jest—whether he was going to do the Bolder Boulder 10K on Memorial Day. At that point, it was only a few days away.

Hammes laughed, said sure, and then thought about it. And then told his wife he wanted to sign up. The race was the next day.

“At first, she was against it, and I can understand why,” he said. “I hadn’t even walked that distance in rehab yet. But I promised to be with a friend, and to stop if I needed to. I signed up.”

This time, there were no tears at the starting line, but that same overwhelming sense of gratitude, disbelief, and grace washed over Hammes. He and his race buddy mostly walked, but did jog a bit, and he was happy with his pace, finishing at just under two hours.

He now intends to do the race every year, as a marker of his progress. For this year’s race, he’ll hit the starting line with his son Jonah, and they intend to complete 6.2 miles with a mix of running and some walking.

Training with those new lungs isn’t always easy, he said—it often feels like a sandbag is sitting on his chest when he breathes deeply. It’s not painful, but there’s a compression that takes some adjustment.

Still, the main thing he feels is that he’s been given a second chance, and he is so incredibly thankful to his organ donor, his family, his doctors, God, and everyone else who worked together to get him where he is today.

“The body is so magical,” he said. “I could not be more grateful. Every breath I take feels miraculous.”