LUNG TRANSPLANT

A Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital patient in Grand Rapids was proposed to last week.

Mike Purdy has spent most of the last six months hospitalized and unconscious

DETROIT – Doctors at Henry Ford Hospital performed the first double lung transplant in Michigan that was linked to COVID-19. I was getting sick so fast,” Jackie Dennis said. Special education teacher Jackie Dennis was diagnosed with COVID in November of last year. Doctors said Dennis needed a double lung transplant. She underwent the transplant at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit on Jan. 16.

ANN ARBOR – Paul DeWyse was known only to the public as “Wayne County man with history of domestic travel” after he became Michigan Medicine’s first confirmed COVID patient last March. Placed in an isolation room on the sixth floor, 58-year-old DeWyse knew this illness could have a negative outcome. “I wanted to help him feel more human when the world wasn’t treating him like one,” she said in the same interview. When he was discharged, he was struck by how the once-empty Regional Infectious Containment Unit was suddenly full with sick patients. In a video of DeWyse recently released by Michigan Medicine, he says he makes a point to enjoy the outdoors and physical activities as much as possible.

DETROIT – A 17-year-old boy underwent a double lung transplant at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit after his lungs were irreparably damaged from vaping, doctors said. Medical officials said this is believed to be the first double lung transplant due to vaping in the United States. “This teenager faced imminent death had he not received a lung transplant,” Dr. Hassan Nemeh said. Here’s a statement from the boy’s family:"We asked Henry Ford doctors to share that the horrific life-threatening effects of vaping are very real! When the boy’s condition worsened, doctors contacted Dr. Lisa Allenspach, pulmonologist and the Medical Director of Henry Ford’s Lung Transplant Program, to see if he would be a lung transplant candidate.