2 days ago
Daywatch: Man with asbestosis gets lifesaving lung transplant
Good morning, Chicago.
Michael Mihalik had a secret. As he celebrated Christmas with his four children, he thought it was probably his last. So in between the food and presents, he told them elaborate goodbyes in his head.
He was suffering from asbestosis, an occupational lung disease caused by inhaling asbestos fibers. The condition leads to lung tissue scarring and shortness of breath, which Mihalik knew all too well. By December 2023, he needed 10 liters of supplemental oxygen just to sit — 15 liters for any kind of movement, he said.
'I just gave up on everything. I figured this was my destiny,' said Mihalik, 66, of Kewanna, Indiana. 'It's my time to go home. The Lord wants me. I'll just go home.'
But then, by chance during that Christmas trip, he saw an article in a newspaper about a successful lung transplant for an asbestosis patient. He said he bought at least five copies of the newspaper. The information in it led him to doctors at Loyola University Medical Center, where, six months ago, he received a double lung transplant.
Now Mihalik wants to share what's possible for the thousands of others diagnosed with the disease, which he came to view as a 'slow death,' especially as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reconsiders the Biden administration's ban on the last type of asbestos used in the United States — chrysotile asbestos, known as 'white' asbestos — to determine whether it went 'beyond what is necessary.'
Read the full story from the Tribune's Rebecca Johnson.
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