After Double-Lung transplant, Every Day is a Gift of Fresh Air for Donna McNabb-Riley

As a U.S. Air Force Reservist for 30 years, Lt. Col. Donna McNabb-Riley was accustomed to following orders and giving orders. She had earned a Bronze Star for exceptional leadership and service in Iraq; she never breached the code of conduct and she didn’t tolerate insubordination or harassment.

She talks emphatically about the incident in 2015 that alerted her to a life-changing health crisis, one that would end with a double-lung transplant at MUSC Health. “I was coming to the rescue of the troops, and I was the one who had to be rescued,” she says with a wry smile.

It happened one weekend when McNabb-Riley, a computer systems analyst in civilian life, was on duty at Charleston Air Force Base. She witnessed a lower-ranking airwoman, unaware that an officer was nearby, harassing a lower-ranking airman.

“I didn’t like what I saw,” McNabb-Riley says, “and I got excited. I called her down, and when the incident was over, I couldn’t calm down. My heart was racing, and I was breathless.

Something wasn’t right, and at the encouragement of clinical staff, I went for a medical evaluation immediately.”

After reading her X-ray report, the resident doctor at the VA Hospital in Charleston told McNabb-Riley that her lungs weren’t functioning properly and recommended rehab to help restore her lung function. Further pulmonary function tests raised additional concerns, and she was sent to the VA Hospital in Madison, Wis., a designated treatment center for veterans and active-duty personnel with pulmonary problems. Doctors diagnosed her with COPD and bronchiectasis, a disease of the lungs that causes the airways to widen and thicken.

What came next was even more alarming: “I was told I would possibly need a lung transplant,” she says. “I was shocked. Since joining the Air Force in 1985, I’d always had regular physicals, and I’d never had a health problem.”

She was put on a medical hold with the AF Reserves, and because she and her husband, Kevin, who was on active duty in the Air Force, were living in Goose Creek, they decided to transfer her care to MUSC Health.

“We knew that MUSC had an excellent transplant program and that I would get first-rate care, and we wanted to be closer to home,” she says.

McNabb-Riley met with Dr. Patrick Flume, an MUSC pulmonologist who specializes in bronchiectasis, and Dr. John Cox, a pulmonologist specializing in COPD, both of whom confirmed her diagnosis and referred her to Luca Paoletti, associate professor and medical director of MUSC’s Pulmonary Rehabilitation and Adult ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), and Dr. Timothy Whelan, professor and medical director of MUSC’s Lung Transplant Program.

The goal was to keep her stable until she turned 60, which is considered the threshold age for a lung transplant. At age 55, McNabb-Riley had to make her lungs last five more years.
Meanwhile, she was prescribed a regimen of nebulizer treatments and physical therapy to optimize her physical health and maintain her lung function. Still, her oxygen saturation continued to drop, necessitating the need for supplemental oxygen.

“I knew a lung transplant was inevitable; I just wanted to make it to age 60,” she says.

In 2020, McNabb-Riley turned 60 and breathed a little more easily. She had achieved an important milestone. The next few months were a whirlwind.

On June 11, her name was officially added to the transplant list. The following Wednesday, her phone rang. “The call was from MUSC telling me they had a pair of lungs if I wanted them.”

Her answer was an unequivocal “yes.” In a matter of hours, she and her husband were at MUSC, where the transplant team readied her for the 14-hour bilateral lung transplant surgery.

“Thanks to everyone involved, my operation was a success,” says McNabb-Riley.

Her care team wasted no time getting her up, out of bed and walking around. Best of all, she no longer required supplemental oxygen, nebulizer, or inhalers.

I felt so much better that I didn’t even realize I wasn’t using any supplemental oxygen,” she says. “It was like normal, once again. Because of my initial weakness and the fact that I had lost quite a bit of weight, I required assistance getting up and moving, but I knew I was going to make it! I just needed to gain my strength back and get these new lungs stronger, and I did, all under the watchful eyes of the transplant clinic staff and the strict guidance and care of the MUSC Coronary and Pulmonary Rehabilitation Clinic.”

McNabb-Riley says she was so determined that, at times, the therapy team actually had her slow down so her heart could catch up.

Undaunted by the COVID pandemic, she slowly resumed her activities. “I just masked up and used my walker to go places. I even had a flashlight on it,” she says. By the fall of 2020, she was driving, doing light gardening, crocheting and making face masks for friends and family.

Nearly four years later, McNabb-Riley is back to loving and living her best life, traveling, singing in her church choir and “taking a lot fewer pills.”

“I do just about any and everything except take Blue and Sophie, my Pitbull and my Cocker Spaniel, on my long walks. “I walk two to three miles, and they can’t keep up with me,” she says.

She’s also added two stamps to her passport. In November 2023, she took a two-month trip to Qatar to celebrate her 15th wedding anniversary with Kevin, who accepted a job as a contract worker after retiring from the Air Force. “It was great,” she says. “We took private tours, rode and fed camels, slid down sand dunes, and spent time in Oman.”

Next up? A trip to Jamaica to visit relatives.

McNabb-Riley gives all the credit for her new lease on life to her care team at MUSC Health.

“There’s not one medical facility better for a lung transplant,” she says. “Everyone, before my surgery and post-op, was thorough and caring and answered every question we had. The doctors, the surgeons, the nurses, you can’t beat them. They are the best. I would tell anyone to go MUSC Health for their care because the team is awesome.”