A Houston mom’s severe COVID led to a lung transplant. Now she’s grateful to be home with family.
One year ago, Krystal Taylor-Vasquez spent the holidays in a bed in the intensive care unit, hoping for the double lung transplant that would save her life.
The Houston woman never expected her condition to deteriorate so quickly when she went to the Memorial Hermann emergency room with a severe COVID-19 infection in the summer of 2021. She ended up spending nearly seven months in the hospital, including two months in a medically induced coma. By Thanksgiving, doctors determined that she needed a transplant because her lungs were too scarred to function on their own.
The prospect of a transplant scared Taylor-Vasquez. But all she could think about was getting home to see her husband and her three children again.
“It was heartbreaking because my three kids were waiting for me at home,” she said.
Taylor-Vasquez, now 32, underwent a successful double lung transplant on Jan. 2 performed by Dr. Soma Jyothula, previous associate professor and cardiologist at UTHealth Houston Heart & Vascular and Memorial Hermann.
She returned home a few weeks later and is now on the cusp of what doctors say is a critical one-year period for monitoring organ transplant recipients. Mostly, though, she’s glad she’s back home for the holidays with her family this year.
“I’m very thankful and grateful to have reached this point,” she said.
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Published via the Houston Chronicle