COVID-19, lung transplant patient joins Norton Hike up Camelback Mountain with doctors who saved his life

Former football player/coach is grateful to support the hospital where he received lifesaving care

Photo caption: “Living life as a transplant patient is not always easy, but my family sustains me,” says Bob Horbaczewski, second from right, with Nickolai, Monique, Athena and Elise.

Bob Horbaczewski counts himself lucky to be alive after a near-fatal bout with COVID-19—so deadly that only a double-lung transplant could save him. He attributes his survival to the strength he draws from his close-knit family and the compassionate care he received from the Norton Thoracic Institute lung transplant team at Dignity Health St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center. In gratitude and to support the hospital that saved his life, Bob and his tight-night family is joining that lung transplant team to climb Camelback Mountain in the 2nd Annual Norton Hike, Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023.

The Norton Hike was established in December 2021 to raise awareness and funds for Norton Thoracic Institute, home of one of the nation’s leading lung transplant programs, where more lives are saved through the complex procedure than nearly anywhere else in the country. 

Like many patients who barely escaped the clutches of COVID-19, the 44-year-old Surprise man reflects back to his unbelievable journey with the virus, beginning with the entire family falling ill with the virus in December 2020. 

“I never really got sick before,” says Bob, a former Division I football player, Surprise High School football coach and powerlifter. “My wife and kids recovered relatively quickly, but I remember waking up in the middle of the night on December 17 and telling Monique that she needed to drive me to the hospital because I was so short of breath.” 

On Christmas day, Bob was placed on a ventilator. His condition worsening until he needed to be placed on ECMO, a life-support system that is often the last hope for extremely ill patients.  

“This was an excruciating and difficult experience to live through as a family,” says Monique. “Bob was placed in an induced coma for two months. No visitors were allowed at the hospital back then, so the kids and I would try to Facetime him every day with the help of a nurse.”

Somewhat miraculously, Bob did awaken, with no idea that months had lapsed. “Honestly, I was more concerned with my family than myself,” he said. The news about his health wasn’t good. His lungs were beyond repair and only a double-lung transplant could save him.

As a personal trainer, Monique had many health care clients, one of whom was a St. Joseph’s nurse familiar with the hospital’s lung transplant program. “I knew absolutely nothing about lung transplants or that St. Joseph’s was the only place in the Valley that could do them, but once we transferred Bob there, I felt like it was the first time that I could breathe!” she says. “I felt safe at St. Joseph’s and informed. Honestly, if I knew what I know now, I would have gone straight to St. Joseph’s when this all started.”

Bob was referred to St. Joseph’s for a transplant in January 2021, but even before he was transferred, the Norton lung transplant team started the long process of evaluating him for the complex procedure.  

“Bob really needed some reconditioning before he could be considered as a transplant candidate,” says Rajat Walia, MD, pulmonologist and medical director of the lung transplant program at Norton Thoracic Institute. “It was great to see our team work closely with the family and the community to help this patient who had been hospitalized for so long and was so ill.”

With the help of an incredible and selfless organ donor, Bob underwent the procedure in March 2021. “It is not been easy, but we are so grateful to still have him with us,” says Monique. 

“Everyone at St. Joseph’s, including the nurses, doctors and therapists, were amazing,” adds Bob. “They all made sure that I had the most optimum care.”

After five months in the hospital and extensive physical therapy sessions, Bob was finally reunited with his family in a tearful homecoming. “It’s such a relief being home, he says.

“Bob and I were gym rats who ran 15Ks, so we never would have guessed this could have happened to either of us,” adds Monique. “But, as a family, we’ve adapted. I keep telling myself and my kids that we’re made to do hard things.”

Coincidentally, the importance of depending on family for strength is embodied in Norton’s lung transplant program, where Bob was told by one of the pulmonologists that he was not just a lung transplant patient, but that the Horbaczewskis “would now and forever be members of St. Joseph’s transplant family."