Dawn Burke

Type of Donation:       lung recipient

Age and Location:      Age 62 - Keyport, NJ

Date of Transplant:           6/24/2019

Sponsor:                      Honored by NJ Sharing Network

DAWN’S STORY

In December 2016, after a lung biopsy, Dawn was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF, a lung disease that results in scarring of the lungs for unknown reasons) and placed on oxygen therapy. After completing a series of tests, she was listed for a right lung transplant in September 2017.

While waiting for a lung to become available, she began taking pulmonary rehabilitation and attended several support groups to help her understand what she was about to go through. In addition, she stayed active doing the things that she enjoyed doing in her daily and social life, including volunteering for the NJ Sharing Network and sharing her story with others.

Over a period of time, her oxygen level started to decline, and she was admitted to the hospital in May 2019 and placed on the high flow oxygen machine; a month later she transferred to the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine (ECMO) to help her breathe. Within a few days the doctors told her that a lung had become available. On June 24, 2019, Dawn received a right lung transplant.

Throughout the time that she was waiting she never gave up hope and stayed positive. She will always be grateful for her faith, family, friends, neighbors, and her transplant team, all of whom were her support system while she waited.

Dawn also gives a special “Thank You” every day to her donor and her donor’s family for giving her this gift of life and hopes to one day meet them and thank them in person.

In December 2020, she was blessed to be able to travel to Hawaii and spend the holidays with her son, his wife. She also met her first grandchild.