Between Breaths Pediatric Lung Transplant: Before & Beyond
Between Breaths is a podcast created by a transplant mom who lived pediatric lung transplant with her son, Ryder. This space is for families navigating life before transplant, during the hospital journey, and beyond, including the grief that often walks alongside it. When you’re in this world, Googling at 2 a.m. leads to fear. Clinical answers don’t always give you the real-life experience you’re searching for. Between Breaths fills the space between medical information and lived reality .... through honest conversations, shared stories, and community. You’ll hear from transplant parents, caregivers, medical professionals, and families who understand this journey, along with reflections for those waiting, healing, surviving, or grieving. This is not medical advice. It’s support. It’s shared experience. It’s a place to feel less alone. If you’re waiting, post-transplant, or carrying the loss of a child or friend along the way, you belong here.
Episodes
In this very special 9th episode of Between Breaths, the tables are turned. For the past eight episodes, I have shared our family’s pediatric lung transplant journey from my perspective as a mom. But today, the heartbeat of this entire show is sitting across the microphone from me.
My son and my hero, Ryder, joins the podcast as our very first guest!
We kick things off with a much-needed "Ryder’s Fact Chec...
In Episode 8, I’m sharing what happened in the early weeks after Ryder’s bilateral lung transplant, when what looked like steady healing suddenly turned into another fight for his new lungs. After discharge, we were learning our new baseline through clinic visits, spirometry, wound checks, medications, and routine surveillance bronchoscopies. On the outside, Ryder looked stable and was breathing well. Bu...
After months of waiting in the unknown, the call finally comes.
In this episode of Between Breaths, Courtney takes you inside the moment every transplant family dreams of and fears at the same time, the moment the surgery is over.
From the consultation room to the ICU, this is the story of Ryder’s double lung transplant… and the first time his parents saw him with his new lungs.
You’ll hear what actu...
What really happens when a family receives the call for a lung transplant?
In this episode of Between Breaths, Courtney shares the moment her son Ryder received donor lungs after months on the pediatric lung transplant waitlist.
At 7:35 AM on June 17th, 2024, my phone rang.
It was a blocked number.
Two minutes later, everything changed.
In this deeply personal episode of Between Breaths, I share the story of the mom...
In Episode 5, we step away from the waiting room and into the grueling daily reality of surviving the transplant list. Because the truth is, waiting isn't quiet. It isn't sitting by a phone. It's an exhausting, physically draining marathon.
I’m sharing the nitty-gritty details that no one warns you about, from doing elementary school math tethered to an oxygen concentrator, to the terrifying reality of the 6-mi...
Episode 4: The In-Between Life : Waiting on the List
"You’re living your life, but you’re also living on a runway. And you don’t know when the plane is coming."
Being “active” on the transplant list isn’t a passive wait; it’s a high-stakes, full-time job. After relocating to Houston, Courtney and Ryder entered the strange, suspended state of the "In-Between." In this episode, ...
This episode of Between Breaths takes us into the delicate "in-between" of the transplant journey. The sacred, heavy space between the decision to move and the moment the phone finally rings.
Courtney shares the emotional weight of choosing "one last Christmas" at home, watching her 10-year-old son, Ryder, struggle to find the breath to laugh during a season of joy. As the calendar turns to 2024, the family faces...
"I’m not leaving this hospital without the same kid I came in with."
In this episode, Courtney takes us back to the "shatter point". The day a routine hospital stay for RSV turned into a race for Ryder’s life. From the silent shock of sitting on a cold hospital floor to the experimental "last chance" treatment that required a 24-hour human watcher, this is the raw history of Ryder’s journey.
Courtney...
In this first episode of Between Breaths, Courtney shares the story behind her son Ryder’s pediatric lung transplant, and the space between fear and hope that defines this journey.
From the moment transplant became real, to the waiting, the uncertainty, and the quiet strength it takes to survive it, this episode is an honest look at what life before and beyond transplant really feels like.
This is not medical ad...
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