TAMPA, Fla. — Judith Falcon says she feels especially blessed to have recently celebrated her 57th birthday with family after she underwent a landmark heart and lung transplant at Tampa General Hospital.

“I’m so excited and happy that I’m going to make it another year,” said Falcon. “And now, I’m going to make it more years in the future.”

What You Need To Know

  • First successful heart and lung transplant performed at Tampa General Hospital

  • Judith Falcon long suffered with pulmonary hypertension that continued getting worse

  • A TGH transplant surgeon says it was a "landmark" procedure

  • Falcon recently celebrated her birthday with family  

Falcon is recovering from a heart and double-lung transplant she underwent in March.

“In the beginning, I was pretty shocked, I was thinking like, 'Wow, I wasn’t expecting that,'” said Falcon, who long suffered with pulmonary hypertension that kept getting worse.

Falcon’s procedure marked the first successful heart and double-lung transplant at Tampa General Hospital. The dual organ transplant is an uncommon procedure, explained transplant surgeon, Dr. Gundars Katlaps.

“The patient has to be really ill with two very important organ systems gravely failing — heart and lungs — for the patient to need the surgery. Yet the patient has to be healthy enough to be able to withstand that magnitude of surgery,” said Katlaps, who serves as aortic lead surgeon of cardiothoracic surgery at TGH, surgical director of the Lung Transplant Program at TGH and an associate professor of surgery at the University of South Florida.

Katlaps says another challenge is trying to find a single-qualifying donor.

“For the transplant program, it’s a landmark,” he said of the procedure.

Falcon described it as a miracle.

“Now I feel much, way better than I was before,” she said.

She waited on the donor list for almost a year, and while her donor remains anonymous, she is grateful to them for the gift of life.

“Pretty blessed,” said Falcon.

The mother and grandmother says her family and her faith have been her support system. On the road to recovery, she looks ahead to a new chapter of life that includes enjoying more time with her family and even planning a trip home to Peru.