Ginny Fagerstrom
Lung Recipient
Ginny — a native of Nome, Alaska — likes to say that she’s a part of an enormous community of “Inupiaq grandmas and Gold Rush grandpas.”
“My extended family includes everyone I grew up with in Nome and everyone my parents know,” Ginny said. “I have a wonderful, supportive husband named Kevin and three amazing kids: Taia, Kira and Remy.”
Ginny’s transplant story began in 2006, when she was found to have extremely high pulmonary hypertension — a condition in which lung damage makes it hard for the heart to push blood through the lungs.
Medication and supplemental oxygen improved Ginny’s health significantly for the next 10 years, but in 2017, regular activities and breathing once again became difficult for her. Tests revealed her pulmonary hypertension had returned with a vengeance, and Ginny was unable to work, take care of her kids, or really do anything besides sit on the couch and struggle to breathe.
During the summer of 2018, doctors told her a double lung transplant would be her only way forward — which she said “hit me like a ton of bricks.”
Ginny was placed on the lung transplant waiting list at UW Medicine and temporarily moved from Alaska to Seattle to be close to the transplant center where she hoped she’d be able to receive her new lungs. Ginny was prepared for a long stay on the waiting list, so she packed her sewing machine and a suitcase full of yarn.
Photo: Ginny, post-lung transplant, recovering at UW Medicine in Seattle.
As it happened, her wait only ended up being 13 days, which is almost unheard of. Suddenly, a pair of donor lungs that were a perfect match became available, and Ginny received her gift of life on Dec. 14, 2018. In the years since, Ginny’s health has improved dramatically thanks to her lung donor.
“In our Inupiaq culture there is a strong emphasis on sharing, giving, respecting others and showing gratitude,” said Ginny. “Receiving the lungs of another person is beyond description, beyond any kind of sharing or giving or gratitude. This gift has given me joyful days, quiet moments of reflection, conversations with my parents, trips home to Nome, silly family group texts and sewing sleepovers with my friends.”
“Words can’t fully express what we recipients want to say to our donors, our medical teams and our families. I feel the deepest gratitude in my heart, and I promise to live my gifted life in the best way I know to honor the gift.”
Photo: Ginny and her family (L-R: Kevin, Remy, Ginny, Kira, and Taia)
Photo: Ginny’s three children at their respective high school and college graduations.
