Nick LeGrand's presence at home this Christmas is the ultimate gift for his family.
"To me, it's definitely a blessing," said his mom, Kelly. "It's a gift from God."
Nick, 14, is home for the holidays after receiving a lung transplant -- his second -- earlier this year.
"I just hope the donor family has peace this Christmas," Kelly said. "Someone lost a child so that he could live."
Returning to his Dubuque home was "pretty exciting," Nick said.
Nick received a new set of lungs in a 13-hour procedure at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston in July.
"The hard part is done," Kelly said.
"Now, we're just keeping him healthy," said Nick's dad, Mark.
"The first year after the transplant is critical," Kelly said.
A rare lung ailment called primary pulmonary hypertension led to Nick's first transplant a decade ago. Doctors had hoped the first transplanted lungs would grow with Nick, but the lungs were compromised by chronic rejection, and his condition
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Primary pulmonary hypertension is a rare lung disorder in which the blood pressure in the pulmonary artery rises far above normal levels for no apparent reason. The pulmonary artery carries oxygen-poor blood from the right ventricle to the lungs, where the blood gains oxygen before flowing back to the heart. The disease increases resistance to blood flowing through the vessels, which strains the heart by causing it to work harder.
Before he left for Houston with his mom, the chronic disease had severely restricted Nick's quality of life. He could no longer attend Eleanor Roosevelt Middle School and needed a motorized scooter for mobility.
A tutor comes to the LeGrand home now, but Nick will eventually return to school, once his ability to fend off infection improves.
"He is having a little problem getting his white (blood cell) count under control," Kelly said.
Nick and Kelly had been living in Houston, awaiting a transplant, since late December 2007. "If we could have taken the family down there, it would have been OK," Kelly said.
Hurricane Ike's arrival in Houston coincided with Nick's relocation to Milwaukee for the final month and a half he spent recovering before his return home.
While Kelly and Nick waited for the transplant, Dubuque residents raised funds to help the family with expenses.
"The community really pulled together," Kelly said. "Even when we were down there, we felt it."
Nick LeGrand Returns to Dubuque - Nick LeGrand is back in Dubuque after receiving his second lung transplant earlier this year.
