Helping because he has ‘been there’: Battle with cystic fibrosis motivates Gilad to lend a hand November 9, 2001
Throughout his life, Yoav Gilad (’93) has faced a challenge that most other people could never imagine. Now age 26, Gilad was diagnosed at birth with Cystic Fibrosis (CF), a chronic lung disease that, according to the National Institutes of Health website, is “the most common fatal hereditary disorder affecting caucasians [in America].” Gilad said that in high school he led a normal life that was not dominated by the disease. “All my friends treated me as if I was an ordinary guy. The only thing that distinguished me was on the days we ran the mile, I’d remain in normal clothes,” Gilad said. “I was just an average guy in high school.” However, while attending the University of Maryland, Gilad’s health deteriorated. “College was a lot harder for me than high school, not because of the environment, but because the CF was more advanced,” said Gilad. Finally in 1998, Gilad’s health had declined so much that he had to be put on a waiting list for a lung transplant. “I was in such bad shape in ’98. I couldn’t even walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded. I had to be on an oxygen tank 24 hours a day,” Gilad said. Finally, a lung transplant match was found for him on June 11, 2000. Because lungs can remain outside a human body for only six hours, Gilad said, the doctors had to operate immediately to have a chance at success. “The days following the surgery were the worst,” said Gilad, “not because of the pain, but because of the constant fear of contracting an infection.” Gilad said that he spent 26 days in the hospital under the constant supervision of his doctors and nurses. “The waiting was the worst part. I just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible,” Gilad said. “I would be up at nights walking with my little cart. I once walked about a kilometer around the nurse’s station. I’m sure they loved that,” he said. When he was released from the hospital on July 5, 2000, Gilad said that making sure not to contract an infection was his main priority. This is a difficult task considering only 55 percent of lung recipients survive five years after their operation, according to the Johns Hopkins University Medical School website. Gilad said he is now the healthiest he has ever been and is leading a normal life. In September, Gilad biked 184.5 miles along the C&O Canal for the “We’ve Been There National Transplant Organization,” an organization he created earlier this year. According to the organization’s mission statement, it was created to help “young people on thoracic transplant waiting lists and their families with emotional and social support.” “The reason I founded this organization was because while I was waiting to receive the transplant, I had no one to talk to,” Gilad said. “I couldn’t connect with my support group because it was filled with much older people, people with children and families. “I didn’t really feel that I belonged in that group of people. These people defined themselves by their illnesses. I just wanted to be a normal guy who happened to have CF,” Gilad said. Throughout his life, Gilad has heard many statistics about CF but said he does not pay any attention to them. “Statistics are not an ending, but rather they determine a path. They can tell you that 55 percent of people survive after five years of having their surgery, but that doesn’t mean that you have a 55 percent chance of surviving,” Gilad said. “You are a totally new person, and these statistics do not apply to you. They only represent what has happened in the past.”
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