donor organs for Deer and Vega, Bharat said.
Situs inversus affects about 1 in 10,000 people, but it doesn’t always lead to health problems. Although the organs are reversed, they still function.
“In fact, many of the patients with this condition don’t even realize they have this until they seek medical attention for something unrelated,” Bharat said.
But Deer developed an autoimmune disorder that causes inflammation and scarring of the lungs, requiring a transplant.
Deer has needed a transplant for some time now, but doctors told Deer that he needed to lose 100 pounds before he could get on the waiting list.
“It took me a year and some change, but that’s when I came back to see them and that’s when my process actually started,” he says.
‘Bird in a cage’
In December, Deer was sworn in as a county commissioner from a hospital room as he struggled with shortness of breath.
Deer got on the donor list for new lungs at the end of March, and spent the next several months on supportive oxygen at Northwestern Memorial. He underwent a successful transplant on May 22.
Vega, 27, of Elgin, Ill., needed a lung transplant because she also was born with another rare disorder that frequently accompanies situs inversus, called primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD).
PCD prevents the tiny, hairlike structures in a person’s airway from removing germs and pollutants, causing