OLDS — Cliff Tuggle got a new lease on life last November when he underwent one of the most complicated, invasive surgeries you can imagine – a double lung transplant.
Although he's still recovering and there have been some complications, Cliff and his wife Carla – both of Olds -- are eternally grateful for it.
Cliff’s surgery took place Nov. 17 in Edmonton.
It was a massive undertaking.
“It’s about as complex as you can get – it’s from armpit to armpit. They open you up like a trunk lid,” Cliff said during an interview.
“I’m still recovering. Normally it wouldn’t take as long, but they cut your sternum in half, and my sternum refuses to mend.”
Carla says it took about two years for Cliff to get ready for the surgery.
That included various tests and getting himself mentally and physically able to handle the surgery.
Cliff says there are a number of factors that led to the need for the transplant. He developed COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) primarily from smoking.
Carla says his various jobs over the years didn’t help either.
“There were a lot of causes,” she said. “Smoking, welding, he worked at a gravel crusher a lot of his life – all sorts of things getting into his lungs. But definitely smoking is one of them.”
The team carefully assessed Cliff to make sure he was fit mentally and physically for the operation. In the process, they discovered restrictions in his arteries, so a couple of stents were installed.
“That in itself was a blessing. I could have had a very bad heart attack,” he said.
“They're an amazing team," he added. “I’ve never seen anything like it; just a well-oiled machine and everybody cares and everybody listens.”
In November he got a phone call; the team was ready to undertake the surgery on him.
“The criteria they told me later, to be accepted, you can’t have more than two years left to live, so that makes me emotional. It was a miracle,” Cliff said.
Months later, he feels much stronger, although there are still some complications.
“I went in at 19 percentile, so I was at 19 per cent of all men my age for breathing capacity. When I got out, I was in the 64 percentile. It’s amazing,” he said.
“The University of Alberta transplant team do amazing life-saving things. But they don’t just save lives. They change the quality of life for so many people in so many ways. It’s just incomprehensible.
“I get to see my grandkids now. I don’t expect much, but what I’ve had is just – a miracle.”
Carla feels the same way. She’s amazed by the effort Cliff put in to be ready for the surgery -- including going on the treadmill -- and his transformation afterward.
“Every day he pushed and pushed and pushed himself and he did approximately 8,000 steps a day with oxygen, trying to get his body ready,” she said.
So far, she said, Cliff’s body has not had rejected his new lungs.
Like Cliff, Carla is impressed by all involved in the transplant.
“It all boils down to all the people that we met throughout our journey in the last two years. If it weren’t for people giving organ donations, we would never have met any of the people we met, because there would be no lives to be saved and no second chances to happen,” she said.
“To be blessed to have received the gift of a second chance at life is what it’s all about. And it all starts with the donor’s donation.”
Carla said she and Cliff still have to travel back and forth to Edmonton for regular checkups.
“He still has a few things they have to fix and once they’re fixed he will be like new. Like new as he hasn’t been for many years,” she said with a laugh.
“What a blessing it is, and any person who’s a recipient will say that same thing, for sure.”
