I was eight months old when I was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, a genetic illness that slowly damages the lungs and can affect digestion and other organs. My parents quickly learned the rhythms of it all: treatments, medications, and constant vigilance.

But here is the part people do not always expect: I still got to be a kid. I rode horses. I ran cross country. I went to college. I fell in love and married Raymond. I built a life that looked normal from the outside and felt hard-won and joyful from the inside.

Then, in 2014, my lung function declined faster than any of us expected. On New Year’s Eve, I went into the hospital for what we assumed would be a short stay: antibiotics, extra breathing treatments, and a reset. That is not what happened.

Breathing became a full-time job. Eventually, my body could not do it on its own. The care team placed a breathing tube and connected me to a machine to breathe for me. The next thing I remember is waking up six weeks later. I had been in a coma. My body was weak and felt like it belonged to someone else. I needed oxygen, strength, and a miracle. I realized that I was not going to survive without a double lung transplant.

Rebecca: “A transplant isn’t one moment. It’s a whole season of life.”

The hardest part was not just getting on the transplant list; it was becoming strong enough to be considered a candidate in the first place. After more than four months in the hospital, we finally heard from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which agreed to evaluate me. We traveled there carrying equal parts hope and fear, knowing that evaluation does not guarantee acceptance, and acceptance does not guarantee organs in time.

And then, just weeks after we arrived, we received a call that changed everything. A willing donor and their family gave me the gift of life. Because of that decision, I received a double lung transplant and a chance at a life I did not know I would get to keep.

People often describe a transplant as the finish line. For me, it was the starting line. The recovery was not tidy. It is hard to hold joy and grief in the same hands, but that is what recipients learn to do. We celebrate life while honoring the cost of it.

Raymond: “Being her husband turned into being her advocate.”

When your spouse is in a hospital bed and cannot speak for themselves, time changes shape, days blur, and decisions do not wait until you have had adequate sleep.

My job was not medical, it was human. I learned the rhythm of rounds. I took notes like her life depended on it, because it did. I asked the questions that I did not want the answer to, and I repeated those questions when the answers were wrapped in speed, acronyms, or exhaustion.

I also did small things, because small things were the only parts I could control. I played her favorite music when the room felt too quiet, and I brought pieces of home into a space that did not belong to us. Most often, I repeatedly reminded her of what she was fighting for. I showed up for rehab sessions that felt impossible, a feeling that quickly became my new normal. I started calling myself her “cornerman” because even though I was not fighting the fight directly, I could do everything in my power to help her win.

From the outside, a caregiver can look like an extra person in the room. From the inside, caregiving is constant calculation: Is she in pain? Did we understand the plan? Did we miss a symptom? Am I asking every important question that I can think to ask?

Caregivers also absorb fear, so the patient does not have to carry it alone. If I could say one thing to clinicians, nurses, and anyone working in transplant medicine, it would be this: Please treat the caregiver as part of the care team. Often, what matters most is clarity, urgency, and collaborative effort.

Rebecca: “Nearly a decade later, my kidneys were failing.”

Just when life felt steady again, years into the lung transplant and the routines we had rebuilt, another organ began to falter. My kidneys were failing. This time, the hero was closer to home.

My father offered to be a living kidney donor without hesitation. There are not enough words in the dictionary for what it means to receive an organ from someone who has loved you for your entire life. It is humbling in a different way. It is also a reminder that sometimes organ donations are deeply personal. It is surreal knowing that, right now, I am alive because my father gave me life again.

Together: “Donate Life Month is about more than awareness. It’s about outcomes.”

In April, we will see reminders to register as organ donors. We will see stories like ours shared in hopeful tones. We are grateful for that hope. We live inside it.

But what we may not see is the web of people behind every transplant success: donors and donor families, living donors, nurses, physicians, therapists, social workers, and caregivers who become advocates overnight. Organ donations are not theoretical to us. They are a gift of time, another anniversary, and a future that we nearly lost.

If you have ever wondered whether registering matters, we are here to tell you that it does. Talk to your family. Make your wishes known. Register. Consider living donation if it is right for you.

To those health care professionals who take care of transplant patients: Thank you for what you do. Please keep seeing the person in the bed and the caregiver in the chair beside it, too. Healing is strongest when science and steadfast support move together.

Rebecca Poole and Raymond Poole are patient advocates.