In November 1998, 33-year-old Gary Klausner, breathing though an oxygen machine, sat down in his Manhattan apartment and made a video he prayed would never be watched.
“I wanted to leave my boys a message, in the event that they never got a chance to meet me,” said Klausner, who suffers from cystic fibrosis and whose wife, Robin, had just given birth to twins the week before. He told his wife to put the tape into the vault, and “no one’s to ever look at it” unless something happened to him.
The tape has sat in the vault, and on Wednesday, Klausner, of Plainview, who was twice told he had limited time to live, celebrated the 25th anniversary of the double lung transplant that saved his life. He received them on Dec. 20, 1998.
“I feel like a million bucks,” he said in a recent interview. “I don’t think there’s anything that could stop me.”
The milestone is a significant medical feat, as most people with a double lung transplant live a median of about 10 years after surgery, said Dr. Zachary Kon, system surgical director of advanced heart and lung disease and heart and lung transplantation at Northwell Health.
The longest someone has lived with a double lung transplant is about 32 years. Klausner is determined to beat those odds.
“I want to be the G.O.A.T. [greatest of all time],” he said.
At the age of 10, he was diagnosed with the genetic disease that causes the body to produce thick, sticky mucus that can build up and block the lungs and the pancreas, the organ that secretes digestive enzymes. He was not expected to live past the age of 16.
“Historically, it was an unfortunate death sentence for many children who never saw 20 years old, “ said Kon.
Despite the initial diagnosis, Klausner said he led a “relatively healthy” life, playing college tennis and describing himself as a “basketball junkie.” But he knew he was living on borrowed time.
“Back then, you didn’t have adults with cystic fibrosis,” Klausner said. “No…
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