“Every day is a challenge, and every day is a bonus.” Caroline Wrenn’s lungs began severely deteriorating 12 years ago. After much back-and-forward with different medical professionals, she was eventually diagnosed with interstitial lung disease.
“The growth just goes up in your lungs and takes over, so you can’t breathe,” explains Caroline, who lives in Bainham with her partner Daryl.
Over time, she was put on round-the-clock oxygen, with her quality of life and odds of survival worsening by the day. She was placed on an active transplant list in 2023, but hope was not high.
“They actually thought I’d be dead before I got the lungs,” the 63-year-old says.
She began navigating her end-of-life preparations, as well as the grief and anger that comes with such surreal planning.
Then, 14 months ago, the phone rang in the middle of the night, and Caroline was told that it was time.
Her first reaction was panic. She told the coordinator, “No thanks, we’ll do this another day”. And then, as the news sunk in, the emotions welled up and she began screaming and crying.
She and Daryl were escorted over the Tākaka Hill, which was closed for roadworks, and then flown to Auckland, which houses the nation’s liver transplant unit.
Her surgery took more than six hours, and she remembers waking up, seeing the theatre lights, and asking if she was dead.
Her procedure was not without complications, and her recovery has been slow.
She is navigating three different diets simultaneously, as the medication has given her diabetes, and she has high potassium and needs to be extra vigilant to avoid food-borne illness.
“At the moment I’m sick, I’m struggling, but I just keep on going.”
She thinks about her donor every day. While identities are not disclosed, age and genders are, if the recipients want to know.
Caroline bawled when she was given the scant details of the young woman who, in dying, saved her life.
She wrote a letter expressing her gratitude to her donor’s parents, which could be passed on through the transplant team. She also attended one of Auckland’s monthly services held in honour of both transplant donors and patients, and she says that she could not help but scan the crowd, wondering if her donor’s family was there.
She has found that a common misconception from others is that once the transplant was completed, she was fixed. However, her recovery, including the monitoring and frequent trips to Auckland for tests, will go on forever.
“It’s a hard, long, sometimes lonely journey, really.”
Solace comes from contact with her fellow transplant patients who were alongside her in the Hearty Towers recovery unit – her “lungateers”, she calls them, describing them as “another family”. She also cherishes the relationships she has formed with the doctors and nurses in Golden Bay, saying that she has built a “friendship and a bond” with many.
“You live in fear of [organ] rejection and infection,” she says. “I’m forever fighting my body at the moment. But it’s worth it. It’s a second chance of life, and I’ve got to take it.”
