Calumet Heights woman receives first quadruple transplant of its kind in Illinois, 6th in the U.S.

A South Side woman made medical history. UChicago Medicine surgeons spent 36 hours performing four lifesaving organ transplants on Jasmine Jones, who now has a new outlook on life.

Jones, 28, spent her entire life battling cystic fibrosis. A little more than a year ago, her body started shutting down, leading her to need new lungs, a liver, and a kidney.

"I didn't have much energy. I was in a lot of pain ... I was swelling up," she said.

Now, she has more energy after receiving a quadruple organ transplant.

"I have a lot of energy, I just don't know where to put it," she said.

Jones, who lives in Calumet Heights, says she has immense gratitude to her organ donor and compassion for their family.

"You can't get any more selfless than that," she said. "Truthfully, you gave your life to give a life. And there's ... there's no words that can be put into how grateful I am for that."

And Jones' gratitude continues when it comes to the doctors who performed 36 hours of lifesaving surgery on Jan. 5 and 6 of this year.

"Everyone that was involved in my care team, but especially the doctors, Dr. Sanchez and Dr. Barth, I love them so much," Jones said.

The United Network for Organ Sharing says Jones' surgery is the first quadruple transplant surgery of its kind performed in Illinois, and only the sixth in the United States.

Dr. Pablo Sanchez, surgical director of the UChicago Medicine Lung Transplant program, performed Jones' double-lung transplant. Dr. Rolf Barth, co-director of UChicago Medicine Transplant Institute, performed Jones' liver and kidney transplants. The two surgeons were part of the multiple surgical teams that carried out the procedures.

Both doctors described how it felt to see the transplanted organs functioning in Jones.

"Every transplant is a miracle, and, you know, a lot of times, we're putting one organ in, and we see one miracle moment of the organ reanimating," he said.

"If you see these patients the next day, if you have ... if you met them before the surgery, and you met Jasmine, after all the organs were in, she had a different glow," Dr. Sanchez said.

It took six weeks for Jones to recover. In the future, she's looking forward to returning to work as a daycare assistant.

"Before, I wasn't living life. I was a bystander. And now I feel like I'm ... I'm the main character. I can do anything," Jones said.

One of the things she says she found most difficult? Breathing.

She had to get used to breathing in and out and even reminding herself to breathe, because the feeling was so new.