For 14 years, Gabriel Gonzalez Chavez suffered from a lung condition called hypersensitivity pneumonitis which causes lung scarring, shortness of breath, and poor quality of life.

It began with a cough that did not respond to medication. Gabriel tried immunosuppressants for years to no avail. He even moved from his home in Mexico City to Cancun so he could breathe more easily at sea level. Still, the condition continued to damage his lungs and he needed a double lung transplant.

At 50 years of age, Gabriel turned to the lung transplant program at Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center. The hospital has one of the top lung transplant programs in the country, performing more than 100 transplants in 2024. 

The International Services program at Baylor St. Luke’s assisted Gabriel with gathering the necessary documentation, medical records, and travel arrangements so he could be admitted as soon as possible.

Gabriel was on oxygen when he arrived in Houston in August 2022. Dr. Ramiro Fernandez II, a thoracic surgeon at Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center and Assistant Professor of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine, performed the double lung transplant two months later.

The surgery went well and Gabriel was back home in just two weeks. However, in the ensuing months, he developed diffuse bilateral airway stenosis, a rare narrowing of the airways in both lungs. He became so sick he was admitted to ICU and placed on a ventilator.

Gabriel was in good hands. Baylor St. Luke’s has an excellent reputation in the field of high-risk transplant surgeries. “We have a very experienced team of surgeons, pulmonologists, and an ICU care team that can manage these kinds of rare cases.  We're prepared to handle any sort of complication with good outcomes,” Dr. Fernandez said.

“Diffuse bilateral airway stenosis is a very unusual complication, very rarely described in the literature,” Dr. Fernandez said. The hospital’s advanced interventional pulmonology team performed several dilations and stent placements to open his airway but the condition was too severe. 

The condition progressed to the point that another lung transplant was his only option.  Gabriel underwent a bilateral lung transplant performed by Thoracic Surgeon Gabriel Loor, Associate Professor of Surgery, Cardiothoracic Transplant & Circulatory Support at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center.

“I did very well with the new pair of lungs,” Gabriel recalled. “I was in the hospital for three weeks, and two months later I was back in Mexico. Now I feel perfect, better than when I was 20 years old!”

Today, Gabriel is back in Cancun, enjoying what he calls “this second chance at life.”