01/10/2026
Today we celebrate Rock’s THREE Year Anniversary after receiving a Double Lung Transplant at Health Charleston. We shared last week that his donor was 16 year old Alexander Lara Delgado from Nashville, TN. Alex and his family are our heroes as they chose to donate Alex’s organs! His lungs gave LIFE to Rock and his other organs gave life to others!!!
Many of you have asked what happened? Rock was a healthy teenager who worked on the family farm and played all sports in high school. He underwent sinus surgery in October 2022 and his transplant was in January 2023, so that is how quick his lungs were destroyed .
During the months leading up to transplant, we had consults from nearly every specialty team at Prisma in Columbia and then Shawn Jenkins MUSC-Charleston with still a vague presumed understanding of what had happened to Rock’s lungs. Some Doctors said it was a staph aureus pneumonia and a systemic reaction to Bactrim after his sinus surgery leading to the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome-ARDS. Other Doctors said it was EVALI- which is electronic va**ng acute lung injury associated with va**ng. They described as the “perfect storm” after sinus surgery, staph aureus pneumonia, allergic reaction, causing injury to an already compromised lungs due to va**ng. For WHATEVER reason which we may never know …. Rock was on 100% oxygen with full ventilatory support with oxygen saturation levels often ranging in the 80’s. We’d come to a crossroad! We had much support from the Pediatric Intensive Care team, the Palliative Care team, the Transplant team, the ECMO team and the wonderful staff. They explained that all treatments for Rock had been tried, and were exhausted with no success or improvement. Our options were Rock would need to be placed on a heart/lung machine- ECMO- pretty quickly to attempt to sustain his life long enough to get him strong enough to POSSIBLY qualify for a Double Lung Transplant OR we could decide to STOP life sustaining measures providing comfort measures, and Rock would be an organ donor himself then would go home to be with the Lord. Lord! Lord! Lord! He is the only one to truly take the wheel and navigate a parent/family on this road ! As a family, we came together … yes ALL of us. We knew it would take us ALL for this journey that day and every day to come whatever the Lord’s plan would be. We asked the Lord to guide us in this decision that we had to make. It was decided to go on to the next step, ECMO. We were trying to think about what Rock would want, if he would want to fight so that he would one day be back functioning, or if he would not want to endure this and have limitations afterwards. This was so hard, and we were trying to not be selfish in this decision. In the weeks before all of this, Rock’s sister Brooke explained many things to him and tried to see what he wanted. In one of their conversations she asked “Rock, do you want to fight for your life,” and in return he shook his head “Yes.” She reminded us all of this when it was time for us to decide. We even ask Rock now, “Are you glad that you now have life, Are you happy for this decision?” And he kind of looks at us silly and says “Yes, I wouldn’t have wanted anything different.” This gives us peace. And thank you Lord that you led us to making the right decision.
Rock was placed on ECMO and his journey continued. His transplant team at MUSC is amazing. After giving us the news that Rock would require a double lung transplant, their dedicated staff worked tirelessly to get him on the transplant list. We stayed with him 24/7. Those were scary days for all of us and he also seemed scared about the situation. Anytime we would see that he was getting anxious, we would pray, play worship songs or sing and then there would be times when he simply just needed mom or dad. They stayed at Ronald McDonald House two blocks away and many nights whoever had “night duty” would call and they would come. He continued doing everything the transplant team required of him. He struggled to walk, while on ECMO (we shared on of those videos last week), but increased strength and distance each day. We praise the Lord for the strength that He gave to Rock. He then went into surgery on ECMO which is highest form of life support, weighing 92 pounds. He came through 8 hours of surgery breathing on his own with minimal oxygen with his new lungs. After surgery, we didn’t know if Rock would still be on ECMO, or if his chest would have to remain open. But, GOD! At 4am on the 10th, the surgeon came out and said that everything had gone smoothly. He said our donor lungs were the perfect fit for Rock’s chest cavity!! When Rock came out, his chest was closed, and he was no longer on ECMO! To see him breathe easily with no struggle was a true blessing. It truly was Our Miracle we’d prayed for!!!
All the prayers, visits, calls, donations, food and gifts sustained us through the months that followed. After four months of daily rehab, he was released to home and we celebrated with a welcome home parade! He was so glad to get home after 6 months in hospitals.
His story does not end here because a year later he was diagnosed with Lymphoma brought on by transplant and underwent chemo and radiation, a splenectomy and finally CART-cell therapy which destroyed the lymphoma in his body. His teams at MUSC Health have been unbelievable! You, his followers, are unbelievable! But God! He is the ultimate healer and we are so grateful!
