One Year After Lung Transplant at Mayo Clinic Florida: Off Oxygen, Still Honest About the Hard Parts
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One year after a lung transplant at Mayo Clinic in Florida, Greg McKenzie is breathing without supplemental oxygen. He walks briskly for 30 minutes twice a day, rebuilds his strength, and describes the transplant as a second chance at life.
The story is genuinely hopeful. It is also honest about the hard parts. That combination makes it useful patient-education material for donation and transplant professionals, not just a feel-good headline.
From interstitial lung disease to transplant
According to the Mayo Clinic News Network (November 4, 2026), McKenzie is a 59-year-old account manager from West Palm Beach, Florida. He had always been active until progressive shortness of breath got in the way.
In January 2025 he went to an emergency department thinking he was having a heart attack. His heart was fine. Doctors diagnosed interstitial lung disease: inflammation and progressive scarring that make it hard to move oxygen into the blood.
His condition worsened until he needed oxygen around the clock. A lung biopsy led to bilateral pneumothorax. He was hospitalized, told he needed a transplant, and referred to Mayo Clinic Florida. After dry runs when offered lungs were not viable, he received a transplant on November 9, 2025. Transplant pulmonologist Dr. Maher Baz was part of his care team.
The bumps that make the story credible
Surgery went well, but recovery was not a straight line. Mayo reports that McKenzie aspirated after choking on breakfast and needed intubation, developed a deep vein thrombosis that traveled to the lung as a pulmonary embolus, and had two rejection episodes. Dr. Baz said two rejection episodes is about average in the first year. He will take antirejection medicines for life.
He stayed at the Gabriel House of Care on the Mayo Florida campus with his mother through rehabilitation. Since discharge, Dr. Baz has described a smooth and excellent outcome. McKenzie is off oxygen, not yet back to running or basketball, but walking and continuing rehab exercises.
As Thanksgiving approaches in the Mayo piece, he thanks his family, including his donor family, and the nurses, doctors, aides, rehabilitation staff, and shuttle drivers who helped him through what he called a roller coaster of emotions.
Why this matters for OPCs and the donation field
Every lung transplant starts with a donor gift. Stories like McKenzie's put a face on what that gift can mean a year later: time with a mother next door, time with a son, and the ordinary act of breathing outdoor air without a tank.
They also model honest recovery education. Aspiration, clot, and rejection are not rare first-year events. Saying so builds public trust better than a fairy-tale narrative. When OPCs speak with donor families, hospital partners, or community groups, grounded recipient stories help people understand both the hope and the work that follow donation.
Mayo Clinic's article states that Mayo Clinic in Florida's Lung Transplant Program ranked No. 1 in the nation for one-year graft survival in the July 2026 Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR) report. That ranking is Mayo's attribution of SRTR data as published in their story.
For coordinators, the takeaway is simple. Careful donor work and clear family communication sit upstream of outcomes like this. The recipient's year of rehab, medicine, and setbacks sits downstream. Both ends of the system matter.
If you are refreshing lung evaluation and donor-management fundamentals for the CPTC exam, see the CPTCexam.com study resources page.
Brooke Wallace, BSN, RN, CCRN
Founder, CPTCexam.com
BrookeWallaceRN@gmail.com
Sources
CPTCexam.com is an independent educational resource. This post summarizes a publicly reported patient story for educational purposes and is not medical advice. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Mayo Clinic, SRTR, ABTC, or any organ procurement organization.
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