Dad of 3 Gets Double Lung Transplant, Says Kids Are 'Best Form of Rehab'

Ohio tattoo artist Joe Crossman was treated at the Cleveland Clinic after his lungs began to fail, rapidly leading to a double lung transplant

Like other dads his age, Joe Crossman likes to go golfing, play with his kids and travel to Las Vegas with his friends. The only difference? He’s doing it with a new set of lungs.

Now 41, the tattoo artist from Ashland, Ohio was first diagnosed with interstitial lung disease when he was 35. According to the Cleveland Clinic, it's a disorder more commonly seen in elderly people that can cause "irreversible" lung damage.

However, Joe was told it wasn’t anything to worry about.

“Hey, you know, yeah, you have this disease. But we don't think it's progressing, we think it's just scarring” in your lungs, Joe recalls to PEOPLE about what he was told at his local hospital, adding that they don’t know what caused his lung disorder.

And for four years, he lived a relatively normal life. 

Then in the spring of 2022, “I started mowing the grass and I was like, ‘I am really, really winded,’ ” Joe says before realizing something was really wrong during a family hiking trip to Arizona. “I think I made it halfway and I was gasping for air — more than I had ever been out of breath in my life.”

The dad of two — whose wife, Paige, was pregnant with their third child — went to the Cleveland Clinic, and was promptly put on oxygen. “They're like, ‘You probably will never come off of oxygen,’ ” he recalls. “Being on oxygen is kind of terrible. You're tethered to a 50-foot radius of a machine, or you have to take these oxygen tanks with you.”

Despite this setback, Joe continued to work, bringing his oxygen to his tattoo shop. However, his condition started to deteriorate — and fast.

That’s when they were informed he would need a transplant, Paige, who was seven months pregnant at the time, tells PEOPLE. “We were nervous, but it also came with a little bit of relief,” she says. “We have an answer. We have a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel.”

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Joe says that knowing they were at the Cleveland Clinic was "1000%" reassuring, sharing they were "feeling very confident in their ability and reputation."

He adds, “It was really scary, but it was also like, 'Oh, well, this is a means to an end.' It was a relief to know there was a solution — versus just a problem.”

However, the road to the transplant wasn’t an easy one.

“That summer of him being home on oxygen was the hardest,” Paige says. “Heart-wrenching. I was trying to be positive for him, and night time was hard. His oxygen levels would drop, so panic attacks would come about at night. And it was really scary.”

Then, after a few close calls, Joe was finally matched with a donor. And following a successful 14-hour surgery, he returned home in October — just four months after his hiking trip to Arizona.

Related: First Living Patient with Transplanted Pig Kidney Discharged from Hospital: 'A New Beginning'

That's when, his family says, began the work of getting better in a house full of children. But as Paige tells PEOPLE, the kids — Finnegan, 5, Brooks, 3, and Goldie, 1 — were on board with their dad's recovery.

“'I wanna get pushed on the swing right now. I go to mom,' ” the mom explains. “'I wanna sit on the couch and snuggle with dad,' and that's okay.”

The kids also understood that their dad was in fragile health in the weeks following his surgery, with Paige recounting how Finn woke up with a runny nose — and stopped to put a mask on before seeing his parents.

“He put on his n95,” she says. “He just woke up and noticed he was sniffling and he said, 'I'm sick, Mom,' and put on his mask. They are so considerate and thoughtful and they did it in their own little way. That was a very sweet moment.”

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And it's his kids that Joe credits with his full recovery. “Everyone's like, ‘Oh, you went through a lot,’ ” he tells PEOPLE. “Actually, I just had to survive and my wife did everything.”

“Really, my wife went through way worse than I did," Joe shares. "But I think also having the kids and having the baby did make me get better. It was the best form of rehab ever, you know, because they don't care, they want you to make a sandwich.”

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