Woman Waiting For Lung Transplant Describes Obstacles Faced In 2011
By: Marlisa Goldsmith
Updated: December 31, 2011
When Christina Kuper was diagnosed in 2010, doctors gave her 5 to 7 years to live.
"So I'm at my 40%. I've lived that 40% because it's been 2 years," says Kuper.
It all started in 2006 when she started experiencing shortness of breath, but she ignored it and thought it would just go away.
Kuper explains, "Come 2010 is when I got the worst," and she was admitted into the hospital.
"After a week long, horrific, bout of tests, everything you could imagine, they ran and they came back and said I had interstatial lung disease," she says.
Pulmonary Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis, a very rare form to be exact.
"It's not placed in with the cancer category, but it destroys my lungs like cancer," says Kuper.
Even though she was diagnosed in 2010, she says 2011 has been the toughest year of her battle, but there are two things that keep her going.
She explains, "I have got to keep moving and realizing that the sun will shine no matter what and i have to do it for them."
Kuper has an 11 and 13-year old who she wants to see graduate and eventually get married.
Just before what she considers to be one of the worst years of her life came to a close, she got what she had been waiting for.
Kuper says, "I was excited. I was scared. I was happy. I was thrilled."
A week before Christmas she received the call that she was finally getting placed on the lung transplant list, giving her high hopes of getting the call for her special gift in the near future.
"I'm hoping that this time next year that I can sit here with you and be back home and show my healing scars that may be deep on the outside but I'm here and no one thought i would be," Kuper says.
While she doesn't like having her disease, if anyone has to have it, she's glad it's her.
"I feel that I'm strong enough. Some people aren't strong enough to deal with what they have and if I'm strong enough to get through it then I'm hoping that i can show others you can get through anything. Eventually the darkest of days you have to find light somewhere," says Kuper.
