When I first met Cassie Stockton, she was seated in an exam chair in Stanford's dermatology clinic, getting cosmetic skin treatments. Lovely and young, just 21 years old, it seemed a bit silly. How could she possibly need injectable lip fillers or laser skin treatments?
I knew Stockton had a lung transplant at 15 and that the immunosuppressant drugs she was required to take to keep her body from rejecting the donated lungs had made her susceptible to skin cancer. But it wasn't until I researched her story in depth that I truly understood how she ended up needing regular cosmetic treatments here.
As I explain in my recently published Stanford Medicine article, her story began at birth:
Born premature, [Cassie] was intubated the first two weeks of life, then sent home with her mother and an oxygen tank. She remained on oxygen 24 hours a day for the first two years of her life. Eventually, she was diagnosed with bronchopulmonary dysplasia, a chronic lung disorder ...
Sixteen years later, the donated gift of new lungs saved her life - but it left scars, both emotional and physical:
The day Stockton woke up out of the anesthesia six years ago after a 13-hour surgery at the Transplant Center at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford, she breathed in oxygen with newly transplanted lungs, and breathed out sobs. Tears streamed down her face. "At first, I thought she was in pain," says her mother, Jennifer Scott, who stood by her side. But that wasn't it. Stockton was overwhelmingly sad because she now knew her new lungs were the gift of a child. It was Dec. 6, 2009, just before Christmas. The death of someone else's child had given her a whole new life.
And now:
Every four months, she and her fiancé make the four-hour drive from their home in Bakersfield, California, past the oil rigs and cattle farms to Stanford's Redwood City-based dermatology clinic for her skin cancer screening. It's been two years of treatments: freezings, laserings, a total of eight outpatient skin surgeries -- the most significant resulting in the removal of the left half of her lower lip. The dermatologic surgeon removes the skin cancers, and then gets to work to repair the damage. "It's heart-breaking to have to remove the lip of a 21-year-old woman," says Tyler Hollmig, MD, clinical assistant professor of dermatology and director of the Stanford Laser and Aesthetic Dermatology Clinic, who leads Stockton's treatment and keeps her looking like the young woman she is, restoring her skin, rebuilding her lip, making sure she keeps her smile.
Stockton doesn't complain about any of the struggles she's had post transplant. She knows she got a second chance at life. And, she tells me, it's her job to take care of the lungs given to her by that child who died.
Previously: This summer's Stanford Medicine magazine shows some skin
Photo by Max Aguilera-Hellweg
