The Tribune

By DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Freeport Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

AFTER 25 years of practising medicine in the public healthcare sector, Bahamian Dr Elaine Lundy is very ill and in need of a life-saving lung transplant.

Dr Lundy, 60, suffers from pulmonary fibrosis – a scarring of the lung tissue – and uses an oxygen tank to assist with her breathing. She also suffers with severe pulmonary hypertension.

She now resides in north California where she is receiving treatment for her illness, and has reached out through social media asking for donations to help raise funds for the costly double-lung transplant.

Before returning to the United States, Dr Lundy was diagnosed with the disease some 10 years ago while living and working in The Bahamas as a family practitioner.

She has worked at the Princess Margaret Hospital in New Providence; in Abaco for ten years; and in Grand Bahama for 12 years, where she was director of clinical services, with responsibility over all clinics on the island.

She recalled when she first started experiencing a shortness of breath.

“About ten years ago, sometime around Hurricane Wilma, I could not get up my steps and I was totally short of breath all of a sudden. In hindsight, I realised that I had had some episodes before while giving little talks at church…but I thought it was nerves,” she said.

Dr Lundy said her doctor initially thought it was pneumonia and treated her with antibiotics, but she did not get any better.

“The spots in my right lung did not go away and they realised it was something else going on. I was later told it was pulmonary fibrosis,” said the physician.

Dr Lundy continued to work until August 2012 in The Bahamas.

“I achieved a good level of functioning, but I was obviously sick,” she said. “When I initially got the diagnosis, I did not know a lot of about it even as a physician. It took me a few weeks to look it up, and when I did, it was like, wow, this is not a good diagnosis,” she said.

Despite her illness, Dr Lundy did not think about herself and continued to look after her mother, who had suffered a stroke, for a couple of years.

After moving back to the United States, the disease got much worse, but she managed to work full time from August 2013 up until November 2014.

“I came to north California because I really needed a change going through life changes,” she said.

She said when she arrived in the US she had to be admitted to hospital.

“I got here and two hours after getting admitted, I flat-lined and they resuscitated me; I don’t think I would have survived in The Bahamas,” she said.

Dr Lundy faced a set back with her transplant after being evaluated and doctors learned that she also had “a high degree of pulmonary hypertension.”

“I was too ill for a transplant. Right now, I am not on the waiting list yet because they discovered some other things they are trying to correct that would put me on the list. I am close, but not there yet,” she said.

Due to the progression of the pulmonary fibrosis disease, Dr Lundy needs to be on an oxygen tank constantly in order to live.

She received one year of disability benefits, and is no longer eligible for any further disability assistance. She has no source of income, and depends on family and friends who are helping her now.

“I can’t travel and come back home or go on an airplane. I can drive, but I would need several oxygen tanks in the car for the day because one tank lasts for an hour,” she said.

Her family is appealing to persons to help Dr Lundy.

“Dr Lundy attended medical school at the University of California at Irvine, and for close to 30 years has been a family physician practising in both The Bahamas and the United States,” a relative said. “Her passion to help others has given her the strength to tirelessly serve her patients, though weary and under oxygenated, day in and day out until she could no longer physically go on. Imagine being a physician on oxygen moving from room to room seeing patients while defying an illness that is hell bent on taking you down. She now needs your help so that she can continue to do the work she loves.”

Her family has started a fundraising campaign in her honour with HelpHOPELive, a trusted nonprofit organisation that has been providing community-based fundraising guidance to patients and their families for more than 30 years. All donations are tax-deductible, are held by HelpHOPELive in the Southwest Lung Transplant Fund, and are administered by HelpHOPELive for transplant-related expenses only.

In The Bahamas, persons may send funds through Dr Lundy’s Scotiabank account, Freeport branch; account number 7001043.