Natalia Maieva

Back in 2009, when I was diagnosed with pulmonary arterial hypertension, this is a rare lung disease that accused the small vessels in the lung.

So at that time, Bulgarian state did not provide any proper therapy about my illness.

So my family started to pay for this just to save my life.

And I started the procedure here with the Bulgarian authorities.

It was a very, very big fight.

You can imagine, I was extremely ill with oxygen therapy for 16 hours per day.

And I should prepare all the documents to fight with different institutions here in Bulgaria.

But this time Bulgaria had the contract with the Austrian clinic in Vienna University Hospital.

So I'm one of nine patients who was transplanted in Vienna in the period since 2040 till 2019.

And my lucky day was 9th of March, 2060, when was founded a suitable clinic.

And I want to share a big thank you to the whole team in the thoracic surgery clinic in Vienna.

Because of them, I will not be able to speak now with you.

You know, when you live with oxygen, every word counts.

Because sometimes you don't have enough oxygen and when you don't feel well, you just can't say only one word.

So this is amazing to fight and go through the double lung transplantation and to have a happy normal life 10 years.

So for me, it's a miracle.

I didn't know nothing about my donor because this is Austrian legislation.

But I was the first Bulgarian patient who received a medical airplane.

And the plane came here to Sofia to take me when was the donor situation.

And when we landed in Vienna airport, I asked one of the pilots, from where is there another flight?