Ella DuBro stands between Matthew Henn (left) and Stephen Kirby (right), two of the physicians on her transplant care team. Credit: Mariam Abaza | Lantern Reporter
On July 9, 2024, an Ohio State senior received what she calls her “miracle match.”
Ella DuBro, a fourth-year in human development and family sciences, recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of her double lung transplant at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center Comprehensive Transplant Center.
DuBro’s transplant surgery was the culmination of a multi-year battle with respiratory issues. She was diagnosed with asthma as a child, but her condition rapidly deteriorated at the start of her freshman year at Ohio State.
“I was just really struggling being able to breathe,” DuBro said. “I actually would take different routes and go the long way around campus to avoid the huge hills because I physically could not walk uphill. I would walk by myself to class because I wouldn’t be able to keep up with my peers. I was always falling behind.”
DuBro tried various medications, underwent a tonsillectomy and explored alternative forms of treatment to try and combat her difficulty breathing. None were successful—and her health continued to decline.
While in Chicago visiting an old roommate, DuBro experienced extreme symptoms and was rushed to the emergency room.
“I could barely walk, I was getting sick all the time and I was just really really out of breath,” DuBro said.
She spent six weeks in a Chicago hospital as doctors tried to stabilize her condition enough so she could travel home.
“The ultimate goal was always to get me back to OSU because I am from Columbus, my family is here, I’m a student at Ohio State and there is an excellent care team here,” DuBro said.
Despite efforts to stabilize her, DuBro’s condition continued to worsen.
She was diagnosed with pulmonary arterial hypertension, a condition in which blood vessels in the lungs are narrowed or blocked, limiting blood flow throughout the lungs. Narrow blood vessels within the lungs force the right side of the heart to work harder to pump blood, which eventually leads to heart failure if left untreated.
DuBro’s heart started to fail as it strained to pump the blood needed by her lungs.
“My heart was three times the size that it was supposed to be and my body was shutting down. My organs were shutting down,” DuBro said. “When I got to the hospital, they didn’t know how I was alive or how I hadn’t had a heart attack because of how sick I truly was.”
After a month and a half in the Chicago hospital, her care team transferred her by medflight to Ohio State for continued treatment.
The Wexner Medical Center quickly assumed her care, developing a treatment plan and placing her on a steady course of medications for two years before surgery became unavoidable.
“I battled that lung disease for two years,” DuBro said. “Having a double lung transplant was always what they would call Plan B. Plan A was to stick with the medication which hopefully would open the arteries in my lungs.”
When her care team realized that the medication was not achieving its desired effect, they turned to Plan B before further heart damage could occur. Matthew Henn, one of the cardiac surgeons who performed DuBro’s transplant, said that lung transplants for pulmonary hypertension are rare.
“You’re trying to find a sweet spot where maybe the medicines aren’t working as well as we would like, but if you wait too long then the heart is not great and you have to consider a heart-lung transplant which is a whole different animal,” Henn said.
The Wexner Medical Center performs about 70 double lung transplants a year, a higher volume than most hospitals, Henn said.
Stephen Kirby, a transplant pulmonologist on DuBro’s care team, said that lung transplants are a treatment option for people whose lungs are failing, and they have no other medical options to get them through.
“We are fortunate here at Ohio State to be able to offer it when transplant is really the only way to give people better living and longer life,” Kirby said.
Though DuBro knew the operation was necessary, she worried about surviving a major operation. She said she also understood the tremendous toll that the procedure and recovery process could take on her physical and mental health.
“Transplant was the backup plan if that all wasn’t working,” DuBro said. “It was always in the back of my mind and I always avoided the question, ‘What if Plan B happens? How are you feeling about Plan B?’” because transplant really terrified me.”
Her doctors understood her fear, and made an effort to assuage her anxieties before the operation.
“I remember walking into the room and I looked in her parents eyes, and I felt how much they had been through and she had been through,” Henn said. “In that short amount of time, I tried to alleviate as much fear and anxiety as I knew they must all have been going through and then wrap my head around a really technically difficult surgery.”
The next day, July 9, 2024, Henn and his surgical partner successfully performed the intensive surgery, carefully replacing her lungs with the donated organs. That was the day DuBro said she “was blessed with [her] new lungs.”
“We were really happy with the result and how the surgery went,” Henn said. “The recovery, we knew, was going to be long but both Ella and her family had a commitment and have done all of the hard work in recovery.”
Now, over a year post-surgery, DuBro has made a remarkable recovery. Her story serves as a beacon of hope for future transplant patients and surgeons alike, Kirby said.
“Ella is the perfect example of someone who is so sick and would not have made it much longer without this gift of life, so it’s rewarding to all of us on the team to see how well she’s doing,” Kirby said. “She’s an inspiration to all of us, and I think she’s also an inspiration for each new patient who is suffering and scared about the potential need for transplant.”
DuBro is especially grateful to her organ donor, who played a pivotal role in saving her life, she said.
“Going through this all so young really opened my eyes to how important organ donation is,” DuBro said. “I was given a second chance at life, but I’m just one of the many people that were in need of an organ.”
DuBro was one of 48,149 organ recipients in 2024, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.
“A transplant is such a special thing, in that hundreds of people go into taking care of transplant recipients and it’s obviously a really special gift from the donor family,” Henn said. “You take the worst possible day of the donor family’s life and you make something good out of it.”
DuBro also credits her care team at the Wexner Medical Center and their dedication for her successful surgery and recovery.
“I just want to thank my care team and Ohio State for everyone being so thorough and so caring. They honestly want the best for you and want you to succeed.”
After DuBro graduates, she wants to advocate for organ donation.
“It is so important to inform people on why it is so important,” DuBro said. “I also want to be a support system for young patients who are going through a transplant. Transplant, especially double lung transplants, are not common in young people like myself. I know when I was going through this I would have loved someone young to talk to because the process is so different for young patients.”
