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DOUBLE-LUNG TRANSPLANT RECIPIENT HITS THE STREETS RUNNING

Stephen Levine talks fast. Very fast. He also tries to run most everywhere he goes. “Everybody tells me to slow down,” Levine said. “But what normal people take for granted is so magnificent for me. I’ve got a second chance.” At 29, Levine is making up for lost time, and breaking many a sweat, after a double-lung transplant in August 2002 at the University of Virginia Health System.

In March, he even finished Richmond’s Ukrops Monument Avenue 10-K race in one hour and 12 minutes, running with his U.Va. transplant coordinator, Donna Charlebois. “He’s a dream come true when it comes to transplant patients,” Charlebois said, “because he’s totally motivated. After a transplant, you really need to push yourself.”

“Before, I couldn’t run one hundred feet. But now with the transplant, I live in a whole new world,” Levine said. “The race was tough but the crowd kept me going.” Tough? Not after what Levine’s been through. 

The Richmond resident was diagnosed as an infant with cystic fibrosis (CF), which affects about 30,000 Americans. CF is caused by a defective gene. The disease attacks secretions of the lungs, liver, pancreas, gastrointestinal tract and reproductive organs, making the secretions thick and sticky and leading, in some cases, to respiratory failure.

Levine was active as a young man, swimming competitively, running. But when he grew older, CF plugged his lungs with thick mucus. His condition grew progressively worse in his 20s until his lung function was at a breath-stealing 30 percent.

“It was very restrictive,” Levine said. “I had such low energy.” Levine’s misery was compounded when he had to be hooked up to a special physical therapy machine for 45 minutes, four times a day. The machine used inflatable tubes to try and shake the mucus loose.

Today, Levine has discovered a rich new life in the form of healthy lungs from a deceased 25-year-old woman. Levine wrote an anonymous “thank you” letter to the donor’s family and received a letter back, unusual in transplant cases. His transplant was the culmination of 22 months of waiting.

“After almost a year, I got the call I’d been hoping for,” he says. “Before the operation, I was always feeling nervous and scared I might die. Now, I’m so amazed. The fear’s been wiped away. I’m doing fine. There are no signs of rejection and my lung function is at 95 percent.”  Levine takes three anti-rejection medications every day – Prograf, CellCept and prednisone – and will for the rest of his life.

Dr. Mark Robbins, a pulmonologist and medical director of U.Va.’s lung transplant program, said Levine never accepted the “role” of a sick person and that helped him survive and thrive. “We give patients better lung function and some don’t fully use their new, improved lung capacity,” Robbins said. “So, it’s exceptional that Stephen pushed himself beyond the sick role.”  Robbins says 90 percent of lung transplant recipients survive one year. Fifty percent survive five years.

“He’s an ebullient, energetic person who definitely wants to live life to the fullest,” said Levine’s transplant surgeon, Dr. Curt Tribble, a professor of surgery at U.Va. “Not every patient gets new lungs and not everybody survives the operation. We here at U.Va. are so pleased at Stephen’s progress, especially since rejection is a possible outcome in cases like his.”

Robbins said cystic fibrosis should not recur since the donor cells of Levine’s new lungs remain healthy. Studies of transplanted lungs in CF patients over ten years have found no recurrence of the disease in lung tissue.

For now, Levine attends a transplant support group at U.Va. every month. And the Ukrops 10-K won’t be his last athletic feat. He plans to compete in tennis at the World Transplant Games in Nancy, France this July. “Thanks to great new lungs and the doctors at U.Va., I’m a different person,” Levine says. “Just walking up a flight of stairs is easy.”