Officer undergoes double lung transplant after Covid and cancer
CHICAGO — When a pair of crises impacted both of his lungs, a Chicago officer went on patrol for a hospital to help him heal.
It was a first of its kind intervention for a first responder.
Arthur Gillespie has been on the job 30 years. He served as a University of Chicago police officer and worked for the Cook County Sheriff’s Department.
“I had the opportunity and was blessed to go through the ranks,” he said. “As an officer as a sergeant as a captain … I really do love the service.”
But in March 2020, the beginning of the pandemic essentially put an end to his career.
“Not a lot of information was being given about the virus, the pandemic hadn’t taken affect there was a lot of confusion,” Gillespie said.
In short succession, several of his relatives got sick, a cousin, an uncle and his father, who passed away.
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“Before my dad and I got sick,” he said. “He didn’t pass away until I was in hospital. We could not give him the farewell or even be there with him.”
Gillespie feared he faced the same fate.
“I didn’t have any reason to be optimistic. I was just hoping things would work out,” he said.
For 12 days, he fought to breathe on his own.
“The first week was very harrowing because my need for oxygen continued to increase and it was explained to me that if that progression continued I would have to go to ICU,” he said.
There was more bad news to come.
“And it was explained to me at some point there was something in my right lung that was going to require some attention once I was discharged,” he said.
He had stage one cancer in his right lung.
“(I) was discharged for covid in May and went right in to chemotherapy,” he said.
He had surgery to remove two-thirds of the diseased organ. In the months that followed, the once active 57-year-old put his best foot forward to regain his strength.
“They knew there was damage from the covid, fibrosis,” he said. “That plus the fact I only had one-third lung on my right side complicated the entire matter. … I was requiring more oxygen … It got to where simple things became difficult — taking trash out, doing household chores, just walking I started to feel it just being able to communicate and talk.”
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By the end of 2023, Gillespie was in crisis.
“ I knew I was sick but my quality of life and my longevity, my life expectancy was made very clear to me at that point in time if there wasn’t an intervention,” he said.
The ultimate intervention took place four months ago on january 6. Gillespie, a cancer and covid survivor received two new lungs at Northwestern Medicine.
“It’s hard to put it into words sometimes,” he said. “It was a very short period of time before I didn’t need anymore oxygen. And that was the first gratifying moment because I had required it so long and had felt at my age, I felt feeble, I felt ill and my spirit didn’t feel the same way. That was a huge leap forward for me.”
Already a designated organ donor himself before his own health ordeal, Gillespie often thinks about his donor.
“I always personally saw myself as someone willing to make that sacrifice,” he said. “it’s obviously something that you really can’t express in words. … The thankfulness, the gratefulness, you realize that someone else had to lose there was a sacrifice … so I’m very humbled by that.”
Gillespie says sharing his story allows him to continue to serve the community – something he dearly misses.
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