Double lung transplant recipient climbs 42 flights of stairs in Detroit skyscraper

He's run across the state of Michigan in five days and biked 1,440 miles down the East Coast in 19 days. Now, a quadruple organ transplant recipient can add a 1,768-stair climb to his list of physical accomplishments.

Kyle Bailey, 35, of Port Huron, is the recipient of four organ transplants — a double lung transplant when he was 26 in 2011 followed by a liver and kidney transplant in 2016.

Sunday was Bailey's first time participating in the American Lung Association's Fight for Air Climb at Ally Detroit Center, but it was far from his first time fighting for air. Bailey was born with cystic fibrosis, an inherited disease that can create a thick mucus in the lungs and other organs. While he lived a relatively normal childhood, his lung capacity declined to just 13% by the time he was 25.

Bailey was added to a waiting list for the transplant at Michigan Medicine University of Michigan in September 2010, but was told he could have years to wait. On June 20, 2011, Bailey was notified he had a donor and went into surgery the following morning.

"My lungs were described as black, wet newspapers when they were being pulled out of my chest cavity they were so diseased," he said. "I came home and I felt like a million bucks. For the first few weeks i could feel my lungs and they felt endless, they felt soft, I felt like I could breathe with each lobe and I just thrived."

The lung transplant gave Bailey a renewed sense of life. He worked through the recovery process and decided to raise awareness for organ donation.

In celebration of his new lungs, Bailey ran 204 miles in five days from Lake Huron to Lake Michigan, just 14 months after the transplant.

"My opportunity came to basically show how well I was doing," Bailey said.

But several years later, his health began to decline again.Years of taking strong medications for the cystic fibrosis began to take a toll on his body — his kidneys were failing and he developed cirrhosis of the liver.

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He went back to the hospital as his health continued to decline.

"(I) didn't know if I was going to come out," Bailey said. "I looked almost like a dead person, I guarantee it."

Once again, Bailey's name was added to a list for organ transplants in January 2016, with the possibility of waiting years for a match. This time around, he got a call about a month later that he had a match and had the surgery Feb. 24.

He began to rebuild himself once again, redeveloping the muscles he lost and getting back into shape.

"I remember walking on the floor a couple days after and I had three or four pairs of socks on because the floor hurt," Bailey said. "It felt like my bones were walking on the floor."

He made a full recovery and made the decision to, once again, use his success story to raise awareness for organ donation. Wanting to one-up his last athletic endeavor, Bailey decided to bike from Michigan down to Orlando, Florida — a 1,440-mile trip.

"I would have felt (like) I cheated myself and others if I hadn't done some sort of an activity to promote organ donation awareness," he said.

After 42 flights up and 42 flights down the Ally Detroit Center stairs Sunday, Bailey said it was only his knees that hurt.

"My lungs feel actually pretty good. My knees hurt, but I guess that comes with old age," Bailey said after the race. "Overall, I feel great. If I had to do more floors for charity, I would."

Lung disease, which can include a variety of lung-related health issues, impacts more than 1.4 million people in Michigan, according to the American Lung Association. Since the start of the Fight for Air Climb in 2014, the event has raised more than $3.5 million for the cause, said Leah Diederichs, development manager with the American Lung Association Michigan.

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More than 1,000 people took to the steps throughout the morning, all with different connections to the cause.

Stacy Klooster, 39, quit smoking last year and began to focus on her health. Klooster said after being a smoker herself and a mom, she hopes to raise awareness for lung disease as it relates to vaping.

"They didn't know everything about smoking when people smoked, back when people smoked two packs of cigarettes a day," Klooster said. "They don't know enough about it, and they've already lost people to vaping and the kids don't think it's serious."

For Bailey, raising awareness for organ donations has become part of his life, but so has his athleticism. After completing the 1,768-stair challenge, he's already looking ahead to the next athletic accomplishment.

Meredith Spelbring is a news intern with the Detroit Free Press. Reach her at mspelbring@freepress.com or on Twitter @mere0415.