“Normal” –that’s the way Clare Dowling describes her teen years.

Sure, that’s the way things started. But when she began college at Chico State University, things became anything but “normal” for the now 20 year-old.

Today the Danville resident is among the newest CTDN volunteer, but at college, she began having trouble breathing. Though others said she was just getting over pneumonia, something inside her said this was different.

A week before she turned 19, Clare’s feeling was confirmed.  She had a serious lung disease and the cure was a new pair of lungs.

“I went into the hospital on July 4^th for 31 days. Eventually wasting away to a mere 88 pounds and struggling to maintain my vital signs.”

For a young woman whose need was a new pair of lungs, you’d figure when she received them in August 2010, life would be back on track.

Grateful for the lungs, she nonetheless faced huge obstacles.  For one, she had to learn to walk again – the result of nerve damage caused by being connected to machines before the transplants for so long.  And, because her heart stopped three times during her pre-transplant days, she suffered from lack of oxygen to her brain – causing short term memory loss.

Since then, as there result of therapy and sheer determination, “I am back in school full time. Walking with no braces at all and I am back to horseback riding which is something I had loved to do since my childhood.”

Clare is now ready to work to register more people to become donors and when they do to make sure family members know of their wish to give life.

“So I think the word needs to be spread about organ donation and who better to do it than people who have gone through it and can really explain and attempt to get people to understand why this cause is an important one."

“I never have imagined that this could have happened to ME! And I think that my family members would agree that the thought of their loved one having to have a double lung transplant would have never crossed their mind."

I was not given these lungs to live a mediocre life. I was given them to live and do everything that I want to do and I am absolutely going to make it the best of it!

Register to become an organ and tissue donor.