Triple transplant patient taking home swimming medals

IN HIS 20’s, cystic fibrosis sufferer, Robert Sheahan, was given six weeks to live and required an almost impossible intervention...

IN HIS 20’s, cystic fibrosis sufferer, Robert Sheahan, was given six weeks to live and required an almost impossible intervention: a double-lung and liver transplanting a single operation, which had never previously been performed in Ireland.

Seven years on from receiving the historic first-ever triple transplant, Sheahan, from County Limerick, called for people to consider becoming organ donors due to a sharp fall in organ donations.

“There has been a real shortage of organ donations, so there is a real need for people to be organ donors,” said Sheahan (36).

The Askeaton-native added the decline is “a big” concern as the number of transplant surgeries were declining “simply because the amount of organ donations are down”.

There were (202) organ transplants in 2025, compared to (263) in 2024; (265) in 2023; (250) in 2022; and (190) during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Not only did Sheahan require a miracle of two human lungs and a liver; he needed surgeons brave enough to perform the pioneering surgery.

In June 2019, he got his wish, when surgeons at Dublin’s Mater Hospital and St Vincent’s University Hospital joined forces to give him a second chance at life.

“The big thing they want to see in transplant candidates is grit, and they saw it in me,” said Sheahan.

However, it was far from a done deal, and the road to the country’s first ever triple transplant was littered with hurdles.

“The transplant was not going ahead, because they had never done it before, I was far too sick,” explained Sheahan, who is employed as a clerical officer at Limerick City and County Council.

“My liver was failing, I was underweight, and I had diminished lung function,” he continued.

Sheahan said his condition worsened as he got older, through his teens and into his 20s.

“Cystic Fibrosis is not just lungs, it’s your digestive system, it’s your pancreas, it’s your kidneys, it’s your heart, it’s your liver, it’s everything.”

He also developed Type 1 diabetes, becoming “dependent on insulin”.

Two years prior to his transplant, after suffering a collapsed lung, Sheahan’s oxygen saturation levels nosedived.

“It was panic stations, I was told I wouldn’t be able to walk without an oxygen tank on my back, which was a bit of a blow.”

“You don’t want to be seen with a an oxygen tube in your nose, I had a lot of growing up to do, in terms of coming to terms with it; it was tough to swallow in the beginning.”

The annual “flu season” was torturous, and routinely forced him into hospital for IV antibiotic infusions, yet despite it all his condition worsened, and he was on the brink.

An introduction to Gearoid ‘Gar’ Benn, owner of a City Gym, Limerick City, led to Sheahan regaining weight and re-building his spirit, through powerlifting exercises.

Benn had also suffered a number of spontaneous pneumothoraxes (collapsed lungs), a condition that can afflict tall thin young males.

“We both knew I was training myself to be well enough for maybe a transplant, one day. It was a funny thing to be training for,” said Sheehan.

Staff at University Hospital Limerick, and CF specialist nurse, Cathy Shortt, Cork University Hospital, who passed away last year, along with Professor Barry Plant and staff at CUH’s CF unit had prepared him physically and mentally for organ transplantation.

Kerry native Dr Michelle Murray, and Professor Jim Eagan, Transplant Ireland, also come in for praise.

After battling CF for 29 years, and eight months into an inpatient stay at the Mater hospital, Dublin, Sheahan was finally “wheeled in for surgery”.

“The doctors thought the surgery would take 24 hours, but it actually only took ten hours, everything was going so right.”

Sheahan said he can’t express enough thanks to Prof Lars Nolke, head of the Mater’s heart and lung transplantation, and his colleague Prof Karen Redmond, who transplanted the two lungs, as well as Prof Emir Hoti, St Vincent’s hospital who performed the liver transplant.

Sheahan woke up a few days later on his 29th birthday a new man, yet there were a few more bumps to come in the road to full recovery.

“Recovery was hard, I had to relearn how to walk after my whole torso was rearranged,” he said.

“You’re on so many steroids hat are driving you one way, and you’re on so much fentanyl and pain killers that are driving you the other way; and you’re hallucinating, quite wild vivid hallucinations,” added Sheahan.

A “paralysed stomach” followed, whereby food is not digested normally, and Sheahan was fitted with a feeding tube for couple of years.

For six months post surgery, Sheahan had to isolate from people, in order to avoid picking up infections, and then, the COVID-19 pandemic struck, forcing him into prolonged isolation over two years.

“Mentally, it was quite hard, and I looked terrible,“ Sheahan offered.

The Fitzgeralds Woodlands House Hotel and Spa, Adare, became an oasis of solace allowing him to rekindle his love of swimming.

He returned to the gym, no longer required a feeding tube, and felt he was “getting better and better”.

But, as the old adage goes, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’, and Sheahan hit another hurdle in June 2024, when one of his legs became poisoned after he was placed on new medication. It almost killed him.

“My leg swelled, so they cut down both sides of the leg, just below the knee and above the ankle, to release the pressure because it was going to kill me.”

“The last thing I remember was nurses cutting my socks off of me, in UHL, and I woke up five days later in intensive care in Dublin.”

“All my organs failed and I was placed on dialysis, but, luckily, after seven days, I was able to come off dialysis and I started to recover.”

Months of recovery followed, he attended a wedding in Greece, returned to the gym, and went back swimming, under the guidance of coach Leona Blackwell, in Askeaton public pool, where he used to swim as a child.

Last June, Sheahan marked the seventh anniversary of his triple transplant by celebrating winning three gold medals representing Ireland in swimming at the European Transplant Games, in Holland.

“It’s about honouring the gift of the donor and the donor family, and it’s about showing people who may be waiting for a transplant, or recovering from a transplant, that after a transplant, you can live a very fulfilling life.”

As per the rules of organ donation, Sheahan said he knows “almost nothing” about the donor who died and helped him to live, but he holds them close to his heart and his mind.

“I’m so grateful to the donor and the donor family, I’m doing my best to honour the gift I was given, by living my life to the fullest.”

Sheahan asked that people “please consider having a conversation with you’re family about being an organ donor”.

“If you’re thinking about it, talk to your family, because, at the end of the day, it is your family and loved ones that will have the final say, so make your intentions known.”

“Have the conversation because, even if you decide not to be donor, by having the conversation you might inspire others to be.”

For Sheahan, “life is great”, now. “You’re talking to a man who was bound to an oxygen tank, 24/7, and seriously unwell, its’s been a complete turn around. I hate calling it a miracle, but it is a miracle.”