Anchorage Daily News

PALMER -- Troy Chapman came home with a new set of lungs just in time for Christmas.

In September, the 24-year-old Palmer native with cystic fibrosis received a double-lung transplant at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle. The case led to a reversal of state Medicaid policy on adult organ transplants.

Chapman and his mom landed in Anchorage Sunday morning.

"I went straight outside and took a deep breath of nice cold Alaska air," he said Monday at a table at Palmer's Valley Hotel.

Chapman talks in a rush, a happy-go-lucky guy with animated blue eyes, a gap-toothed grin and a soul patch that's revealed only when he moves aside a germ-blocking face mask to enjoy a bowl of chili and his "only vice" - a can of Dr Pepper.

His autoimmune system remains weak post-surgery. He wears the mask in public and shakes hands wearing black gloves. At the family home, visitors wash their hands when they walk in. A cold, even pet dander, could trigger a setback. So could an infected tooth.

He's 50 pounds underweight and still needs lots of rest.

But these inconveniences are nothing compared to Troy's former struggle to draw enough oxygen into his body to survive.

He is one of about 30,000 cystic fibrosis patients in this country plagued by the inherited disease that creates a thick, sticky mucus that chokes the lungs and breeds infection. It also hampers digestion by blocking pancreatic enzymes that digest food.

For the last two years, Chapman spent as much time at the hospital as home. His coughing fits looked more like seizures as he strained every muscle to suck air into his clogged lungs.

He burned 3,500 calories a day just fighting to breathe.

The day of his transplant operation, Sept. 19, Troy's body was shutting down in the grip of a brutal lung infection. Doctors later told his family he wouldn't have lived another day.

Troy's parents, John and Autumn Chapman, waited anxiously to see if a critically injured trauma victim would be a good organ match for their son. To this day, all they know about the donor is that he was younger than 30 and took good care of himself, with lungs that fit Troy like they were his own.

"You're watching your child die in a bed and there's absolutely nothing that can happen unless somebody else loses a child," John Chapman said.

"It's an incredible gift," Troy said.

A MEDICAL CELEBRITY

When Troy was born, his parents didn't think he'd live past his teens.

Today, the average life span for a person with cystic fibrosis is about 37 years, thanks to medical and research advances.

Those advances include lung transplants -- surgeries still relatively rare.

Last year, just 174 patients received double-lung transplants, according to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. That same year, the foundation logged 394 deaths from cystic fibrosis, 49 of them related to transplants.

Generally, half the transplant recipients survive five years, though the Chapmans say the odds for patients of their surgical team are better.

"A lung transplant for a cystic fibrosis patient is really something of last resort," said Laurie Fink, foundation spokeswoman. "We want to try everything else in advance."

The bill on Troy's surgery came to about $334,000, he said. Medicaid covers much of that.

But Troy and Autumn Chapman nearly had to move out of Alaska to qualify.

News stories about Troy's condition -- and the fact that Medicaid in Alaska at that time didn't cover transplants for patients over 21 -- spurred Rep. Les Gara, D-Anchorage, to press for an emergency regulation change lifting the prohibition last summer.

"Troy's not the only one," John Chapman said. "There's a half-dozen kids coming in behind him" who need transplants.

The family established a special-needs trust to accept donations to pay for other expenses insurance doesn't cover, such as pricey lodging for three months in Seattle.

Troy and his father, a retired Anchorage police officer, drove to Anchorage Tuesday to thank the department for donations raised in August from a massive garage sale.

Help came from surprising places too. Ted Sadtler, that zany dancing mattress salesman, adopted the cause of cystic fibrosis after meeting two girls with the disease. Sadtler gave a shout-out to Troy's fund in one commercial.

'GIDDYUP'

Chapman's new lungs don't carry cystic fibrosis, his father explains. That's a tremendous blessing: Most people killed by the disease die from lung ailments.

But the rest of his body still has it.

Troy will take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of his life. He takes nearly 70 different medications a day, some of them enzymes to help him digest fats and proteins.

His weight sank to about 130 pounds as his body fought for breath. Chapman is almost 6 feet 2 inches tall. He wants to weigh at least 180 pounds.

Within hours of arriving at his family's split-level home just outside Palmer Sunday, Chapman hit his favorite Palmer pizza joint.

"I went straight to Pizza Delphi and had a Delphi sub," he said. "It hit the spot."

Chapman's notorious positive attitude is strong as ever, as is a fondness for pop culture.

The first thing he said after he finally woke up, a long four days after surgery, was "Giddyup" -- made famous by Kramer, Jerry Seinfeld's oddball neighbor. The weak cough he emitted from his sore, post-surgery body? Just like the lame wheezing emitted by Ben Stiller's male-model character in "Zoolander" after a day in a coal mine, he suggests.

But then Chapman pulls aside his puffy black jacket and yanks up his black T-shirt to show off his surgery scar. A thin red line runs from armpit to armpit, turned up at the ends like a smile, where doctors cut him open and broke his sternum to get at both lungs simultaneously after discovering that a massive infection filled his chest cavity.

Doctors have told the family the best thing for Troy is aerobic exercise to boost his stamina. He walks on a treadmill and hopes to start running.

That's good news for the once-active athlete. Before his lungs got really bad halfway through high school, Troy played football and baseball and ran track. Later, he helped manage Palmer's boys basketball teams.

He's planning camping, hiking and hunting trips this summer and fall. His ultimate goal is to scale Lazy Mountain, a 6,100-foot climb with steeps that challenge even seasoned peak baggers.

His balance, shaky at first, is fine now.

"My coordination is back," he said.

His father puts it a different way.

"He's got his swagger back," said John Chapman.

Find Zaz Hollander online at adn.com/contact/zhollander.

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