WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Lung transplant for Cystic Fibrosis

San Antonio, Texas - December 6, 2011

A San Antonio University student has a new lease on life after a double lung transplant. It is a rare but effective way to treat cystic fibrosis.

This is what Stephen Tyson's lungs looked like less than a year ago, when his Cystic Fibrosis progressed to the point where he was very sick.

"Just imagine, I guess a normal person maybe, the flu or pneumonia times like a hundred, and breathing through a straw," Tyson said.

The 28-year-old Trinity University Student and his doctors made a bold decision. He went on the transplant list. Three months later, in March of this year, he underwent a procedure at University Hospital. The lungs of a 19-year-old girl who died of an aneurysm, were placed in his chest.

"His lungs were kind of giving up on him and we knew that replacing his lungs would give him a new kind of hope to go back to his life," said his pulmonoligist, Dr. Luis Angel.

Just six weeks after surgery, he was back on his bike and is now riding 30 miles at a time. He hopes to travel abroad again, a hobby he enjoys.

Dr. Luis Angel calls Tyson's progress an amazing transformation.  "He's doing very well right now and going through this first year with no major problems. His long-term prognosis is very good.

Tyson is acutely aware of the gift that changed his life. "You know, I'm going to treat these things like they're, you know -- gold. I'm not going to go to bars. I'm not going to be around smoke. I'm not going to endanger them," he said.

About 30-thousand Americans live with cystic fibrosis. Only about two percent of them get lung transplants.