A woman from a Detroit suburb infected with coronavirus gave birth late last year, and weeks later underwent a double lung transplant to save her life, doctors said Wednesday.
Two months after the transplant, Jackie Dennis, a teacher in New Boston, says she is fine. She and the Henry Ford Health System group medical team shared her impressive story, with four-month-old little Mia Rose in her arms.
“I actually feel pretty normal,” Dennis, 31, said. “There are things that are still a little difficult, maybe taking too many steps, going up and down the stairs. But overall I can do almost anything I want.”
Dennis was 36 weeks pregnant on November 20 when she went to the emergency room with a cough, headache and difficulty breathing. She tested positive for the new coronavirus and was hospitalized.
Doctors decided to induce labor a week later and Mia was born. Dennis developed pneumonia and his lungs deteriorated to the point that he had to be connected to a respirator. She was subsequently placed on another special breathing machine, but her lungs were not improving.
“There really are no words to describe it, right?” Said Dennis ’husband, Ricky. “Your wife is fighting for her life and you have a newborn at home. It was tough.”
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A double lung transplant was performed on January 16th.
“Her lungs were completely destroyed by the inflammatory response to the virus, and without a transplant she would not have been able to live,” said Dr. Lisa Allenspach, medical director of the lung transplant program at Henry Ford in Detroit.
The doctor said the number of COVID-19-related lung transplants in the United States is low.
“Hopefully she can get back to work, do the things she wants to do … Long-term survival is very, very possible and likely,” Allenspach said.