[MandiesMom]

Hi everyone,

Not many of you know this, but I have a 22 year old niece who has Cystic Fibrosis. She's had a very hard life. She's in the hospital way more than she is out of the hospital. The disease affects every patient differently but most are hit hardest by cysts and mucous in their lungs.

She was put on the transplant list THREE long years ago. One time, last year, she got a call that she was the "back up" recipient and she and my sister went to the hospital and just waited to see. Fortunately for the primary recipient, the lungs worked for her. Unfortunately, that meant Jada (my niece) didn't get them. That was June 2011.

Tonight, as she was already in the hospital (UAB), they called her. THEY CALLED!!! She has surgery for the new lungs to be transplanted at 5:00 am in the morning. I can't tell you how excited and nervous we all are.

Please keep my niece, my sister, and all of us in your prayers and thoughts. Please pray that these are the "right" lungs for her and that her body accepts them. I can't tell you what a miracle it will be...we have seen Jada lose 4 friends with CF over the past year and a half. All we want is to see her..for the first time in her entire life...take a breath of air. A breath that is easy, that doesn't make her cough, and that gives her the oxygen that her tiny 90 lb body starves for. What a Happy New Year it will be.

With that said, I would also like to thank the person and family that has even made this possible. Organ Donors are the true Angels on Earth. I pray that whomever this is that has lost their earthly life, lives forever in the Kingdom of Heaven with our Father. And I pray that his/her family has peace knowing that they were able to help their loved one save a life!