Natalie Wasserman Kingston, 33, of St. Louis, appreciates the simple pleasures life has to offer – having a conversation, cooking, or getting a full night’s sleep. For more than 15 years, these activities were incredibly challenging for Natalie, who suffers from #cysticfibrosis (CF). CF is an incurable disease that causes the airways to be dehydrated because of inherited mutations in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator (#CFTR) gene. When Natalie’s condition rapidly deteriorated in January 2021, her only hope was a lung transplant. She was referred to Pittsburgh to receive a double #lungtransplant at UPMC. Natalie was hopeful yet scared – she had been declined for transplant by several other transplant centers across the country. Even if UPMC accepted her case, that would still mean moving to a different state in the middle of the pandemic, all compounded by her condition continuing to decline. When she arrived in Pittsburgh with her family, she was very sick and immediate...