'You need a transplant': How a breathless beach walk saved Toms River woman's life

TOMS RIVER - Michele Corcione was strolling on the beach in Aruba near three years ago when she first felt it. She was so completely out of breath she had to sit down right away.

"I couldn't breathe," said Toms River resident Corcione, 70, who was walking with her husband, Jeffrey. "I couldn't walk five feet without having to stop. I had never felt anything like that before."

Corcione thought she was just out of a shape and a bit overweight. Little did she know, she was about to embark on a transplant journey: she would soon find out she needed a lung transplant, a scary prospect for someone in their late 60s.

When she returned from vacation, Corcione called Dr. Robert Restifo, her physician, and said, "Rob, I can't breathe. Something's not right." Restifo was a pulmonologist and Corcione had worked in his office.

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Put on a dose of steroids to get rid of inflammation, Corcione got worse. Then she went in for a chest X-ray and CT scan, and Restifo put her on oxygen. Still, she didn't think she was that sick.

She and her husband had a Mediterrean cruise planned for October, but Dr. Restifo told her she could not go. "You need a lung transplant, Michele," he said. She had interstitial lung disease, which causes irreversible scarring of the lungs.

"It was very scary," Corcione said. "We went from zero to, 'You need a transplant.'"

Over 4,000 people on the waiting list

Some hospitals will not perform a lung transplant surgery on patients over 65, but Corcione went to Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, which has had success in lung transplants for older adults. Nationally, 2,569 lung transplants were performed in 2021, the year for which the latest data is available, according to the National Institutes of Health. NIH reported that in the same year, 4,117 people remain on the lung transplant list, awaiting a transplant.

Temple Hospital's Dr. Rachel Criner first met Corcione in the fall of 2022, when she was already on oxygen, and diagnosed her with pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that happens when the lung tissue becomes scarred. It makes it more difficult for the lungs to work properly, according to a Mayo Clinic description of the symptoms.

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Corcione said she believes her rheumatoid arthritis may have led to her lung failure. "You never know which organs it will attack," she said.

In evaluating Corcione for a potential transplant, Criner performed numerous tests, checking her liver and heart and finding them healthy. Corcione was then placed on the transplant list; the majority of lung transplants use lungs from deceased donors.

"It’s more common than it was 10 years ago, (but) overall a rare procedure," Criner said of lung transplants. "It's reserved for patients who have exhausted all medical options and procedures short of a transplant." The transplant surgery involves a large incision on the patient's side, and normally lasts at least six — and up to 12 — hours.

"After transplant you are always going to be at risk for rejection and infection," Criner said.

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'We will get you a lung'

Once Corcione was placed on the transplant list, "They told me it could take up to two years to find lungs that fit me," Corcione said, noting she is only five feet, one inch tall. "Dr. Criner was wonderful. She said, 'Don't worry, we will get you a lung.'"

She was determined to get into better shape before the surgery. "I went to pulmonary rehab for months and months," she said, and she also lost weight.

In early 2023, Corcione and her husband had just come home from the repast after her mother-in-law's funeral. "We had just sat down and my husband's phone rang. It was Eric at Temple," she said. She had to go to the hospital right away; they had found her a lung.

The next day, Feb. 2, 2023, Corcione received her lung transplant. It was her deceased father's birthday, and Corcione believes the timing was not a coincidence. She received one lung in the transplant operation.

"It wasn't my time, for sure," she said.

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After the surgery, Corcione was expected to be in the hospital for two weeks, and then spend several weeks more at a "step-down unit," for further rehab.

Determined to get out of the hospital faster, Corcione was home after 10 days. She continued pulmonary rehab after she left the hospital, but did not need occupational or physical therapy.

"I was walking right away," she said, although she didn't try steps for about three weeks. Luckily, her body has handled the anti-rejection drugs well. She admitted the aftermath of the surgery was "painful, very painful," but said she adjusted well.

"I have kids and grandkids, and they depend on me," said Corcione, who has four children in her and her husband's blended family, and several grandchildren.

"It's almost like it happened and then it was over before I even realized what had happened," she said of her experience. "I was determined to do what she said, and get better. It's like I have had this lung all my life."

'I'm loving life'

Of course, there have been some changes. Corcione and her husband never rebooked their Mediterranean cruise. She has been advised not to spend a lot of time in the sun, and also to avoid going into the ocean, for fear of coming into contact with bacteria.

Corcione contents herself with swimming in the pool of her Snug Harbor home, and wears SPF 70 sunscreen whenever she's outside. She and Jeffrey recently went to Florida for several weeks; they also have a pool there, so she was able to swim.

"I'm doing great," Corcione said. "I'm loving life."

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Criner said success stories like Corcione's could never happen without donated organs. April is National Donate Life month, and Criner hopes more people will agree to donate and give the gift of life.

"None of this is possible without people donating their organs," she said. "We have a huge problem nationally with all organs. We have more people on the waiting list than available organs."

The waiting list for a lung is normally two years; it's five years for a kidney transplant, 11 months for a liver transplant and four months for a heart transplant. More than 100,000 people in the U.S. are on the transplant list, according to the Gift of Life Donor Program, based in Philadelphia.

Seventeen people die each day while waiting for life-saving organ transplants, according to the NJ Sharing Network, while one organ donor can save eight lives and enhance the lives of 75 others with the donation of organs, cornea and tissue. People in New Jersey can register as a donor online (www.donatelife-nj.org) or when they receive or renew their driver's license.

"I tell people, it's a gift of life, a second chance at life," Criner said of those who receive transplants.

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Jean Mikle covers Toms River, Seaside Heights and several other Ocean County towns. She's also passionate about the Shore's storied music scene. Contact her: @jeanmikle,  jmikle@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Toms River woman thriving a year after her lung transplant