BUFORD, Ga. — It has been an incredible, and long, recovery for a Buford man who needed a double lung transplant after surviving COVID-19.
11Alive's Kaitlyn Ross has been talking to Blake Bargatze's family for the past year as he's recovered from the surgery. He shared intimate details about how he has fought his way back.
Bargatze said he knows that what happened to him is rare.
He was 24 and healthy when he got COVID-19 last year and ended up in a coma for weeks.
When doctors told him he would need a double lung transplant for a chance to survive, he said he wanted to make the most of that chance.
Now he takes 40 pills a day -- and he likely will for the rest of his life.
The 25-year-old says the pills are just one of the ways his life has changed since his organ transplant last year.
"I can't have anything undercooked, so unfortunately I can't have a medium-rare steak," he said.
Steak aside, there's a lot that he can do, now that he's come through the surgery.
He can laugh, he can walk and he can breathe -- and he couldn't just some months ago.
"It's surreal to think how everything went and how far I came since then," he said.
His journey started when Bargatze was diagnosed with COVID-19 in Florida last April. He contracted bilateral pneumonia and his pulse oxygen reading got down in to the 70s.
"I was gray in the face, blue in the lips," he said.
Bargatze was placed on a ventilator and almost immediately into a medically induced coma.
"When I was asleep, I had these vivid dreams, nightmares, and I knew I was really sick. But when they woke me up, they told me I would need a lung transplant, or they would make me comfortable enough to pass," he said.
For a healthy, 25-year-old man, who describes himself as hard-headed, he knew he would do whatever it took to survive.
"I just knew I didn't want to die yet. I want a fair shot at life. I want a family, I want a home," he said.
Blake has a rare blood type, but incredibly, doctors found an exact match just two days later.
He spent almost a year in rehab after the transplant, relearning how to walk and maneuver, before he was finally cleared to come back home.
Bargatze says he's still worried about COVID even as the pandemic wanes but won't let it keep him from experiencing the second chance he was granted.
"I can't live my life in a bubble. I will go out, I will live my life, but I will be much more careful," he said.
Bargatze moved back home with his family but next week he's actually moving out on his own, with one of his friends.
It's a huge step for someone who didn't know if he would survive the night last year.
He said if he wants anyone to take a lesson from his story, it's the importance of organ donation, adding that his journey was made a bit easier because he had the opportunity.
"It's been an incredibly humbling experience. It hasn't been easy, but I am so grateful to the people who have stuck by my side," he said.