Lung transplant recipient sings with donor's daughter

(24 Oct 2017) An opera singer who had two double lung transplants debuted a new song in the US city of Cleveland on Tuesday. Charity Tillemann-Dick was studying opera in Hungary when she discovered she had an advanced form of a heart and lung disease, pulmonary hypertension, and that she would likely die within five years unless she got a lung transplant. She got new lungs in 2009, but had to undergo a second transplant in 2012 after her body rejected her first set of transplanted lungs. After going through extensive physical therapy and voice training, Tillermann-Dick began performing opera again. Soon after receiving her second set of lungs, Tillermann-Dick got in touch with the daughter of her lung donor, Esperanza Tufani, 24. Esperanza, whose name means "hope" in Spanish, is also an aspiring singer, and she had no clue her mother's lungs had gone to an opera singer until her friend, who happened to know Tillermann-Dick, put the two in touch with each other. Tufani's mother was an immigrant from Honduras, and Tillermann-Dick wrote a song, "American Rainbow", to honour her shared human connection with Tufani, Tufani's mother, and American diversity. Appearing alongside Tufani, Tillermann-Dick debuted the song at Cleveland's Medical Innovation Summit before an audience of about 200 doctors and medical executives. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...