Wait a Minute:
I'm a Dancer!

I dance. It's what I do. From the time I was 3, I had ballet slippers and I was learning about a little thing called grace while pushing my body to exhilaration. In the summer of 2006, I auditioned and was invited to dance with the American Ballet Theater in New York. I was unworried, unhurried and absolutely on top of the world. Neither my family nor I had any idea that something was wrong with me. We had no idea that, just a year later, we'd be wondering how much longer I had to live.

We started to notice the symptoms in December 2006, when I was rehearsing 5-6 hours a day for The Nutcracker.  I had very low exercise tolerance and was extremely fatigued.  The symptoms got worse during a family vacation to Atlanta, and we knew something was wrong.

January 2007 found me at the University of Virginia hospital where I was diagnosed with Primary Pulmonary Hypertension.  I had a Hickman catheter placed in my chest that had an IV medication running into it 24/7. After two weeks in the hospital, I went home on full-time oxygen and a full-time pulsox machine. The IV medication, which had to be mixed every night, had only a four minute half-life.  This was extremely stressful for my parents, because if anything were to happen, we had only four minutes to deal with the problem.  Even with the multiple medications, I still had very low exercise tolerance and got fatigued very easily, which meant that dancing was out of the question.  I tried many times to dance again, but I didn't have the endurance.

By the end of 2008, my condition had deteriorated even further, and I was given a maximum of a year to live. I needed a double lung transplant. I was added to the transplant list and started to wait...scared of what was ahead either way. At about 10:30 a.m. on January 13, my mom got the call that would save my life: It was the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh letting her know that they had lungs for me. We flew to Pittsburgh that very same day -- the transplant had to happen as soon as possible -- and, well, the rest is history... because here I am-- a strong, healthy, lung transplant champion.

It wasn't easy; it isn't easy. But I am alive. I am alive because my family fought to take care of me. I am alive because someone else's family was generous enough to give me lungs despite their loss. I am alive because of the prayers and faith of hundreds of people throughout my network of friends and family. I am alive, I have new lungs...

And now I will dance.