OMAHA, Neb. — Odds were, Phil Sauvageau wouldn’t be celebrating Easter 2016. Nor would he be walking his youngest daughter down the aisle for her April wedding.

His life was slipping away.

For 16 years, the 58-year-old Catholic from Omaha, Neb., had battled one health setback after another — hepatitis C, tuberculosis and, now, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a disease that scars the lungs, often leading to respiratory failure.

By the start of 2016, Sauvageau’s lungs were operating at 18% of their capacity. The short walk from his bedroom to bathroom was more like a marathon. He was using 15 canned liters of oxygen just to get through each day.

“For people who don’t know, that’s a lot of oxygen,” he told the Register. “I could only go about 20 feet before becoming exhausted.”

There’s no cure for IPF. Sauvageau’s only hope for survival was a double lung transplant.

Fortunately for Sauvageau, a married father of four and grandfather of eight, he lives just a few miles from Nebraska Medicine, home to one of the most reputable and well-known organ-transplant programs in the country. Thousands of heart, liver, kidney, pancreas and intestinal transplants have been performed there since 1970.

Its lung transplant program, though, had been defunct since 1998. The medical center was seeking governmental approval for a restart of its program when Sauvageau first visited there in October. One month later, approval came. Sauvageau was back the next day, seeking one last chance at life.

Physically, though, he was in no shape to qualify for a transplant. He still had tuberculosis. Nevertheless, he was telling doctors he would be the program’s first patient.

“Given his medical condition in October, I was sure that would not happen, because he was so deconditioned,” said Dr. Heather Strah, medical director of lung transplantation at Nebraska Medicine. “His disease was progressing very quickly, and I don’t think he had a lot of time.”

Sauvageau was cured of tuberculosis and underwent pulmonary rehab treatment, improving his condition enough to qualify for a transplant. He met again with Nebraska Medicine doctors on Jan. 21. They told him he was being put on the waiting list.

Sauvageau told them he’d be back in three days — to get that transplant. He knew, he said, because he said he heard Jesus tell him so the previous night in prayer.

“I was talking to Jesus about all that’s going on,” Sauvageau recalled, “that I know I don’t have a lot of time, but I’m not scared because he’s with me.”

As he often does during prayer, Sauvageau was focused on Prince of Peace, a well-known painting of Jesus that artist Akiane Kramarik drew when she was 8 years old. While praying, Sauvageau said, he heard a voice: “You’re going to be healed on Saturday.”

“His body moved; his head moved on that painting,” he said. “It wasn’t his mouth moving. It was more like: I just heard him, as his head kind of moved. It was pretty clear: ‘You’re going to be healed on Saturday.’ It was very normal. It wasn’t some deep voice or some high-pitched voice. It was more just a very normal voice of a friend.”

Doctors weren’t sure what to make of Sauvageau’s claim.

“We had planned to see him on Monday,” Strah said. “My response was, ‘You mean Monday.’ And he said, ‘No, I’m going to see you on Saturday.’ I remember that vividly in my mind.

“I knew how sick he was, and so I thought this is certainly a possibility. But it’s pretty unlikely.”

 

Prayer Life

Sauvageau’s certainty was based upon a deep prayer life that has spanned more than a quarter century.

A lifelong Catholic, he attended Omaha’s St. Margaret Mary Grade School and then Jesuit-run Omaha Creighton Prep High School. But, he said, his faith began to wane in high school and college. Into adulthood, he was drinking too much.

One night, in 1989, during prayer, he asked Jesus for help to quit drinking. It was the first, and only other, time, he said, that he heard Jesus speak.

“It wasn’t as dramatic,” Sauvageau said. “I didn’t see anything move. What he told me was, ‘You won’t drink anymore.’

“From that point forward, I never did.”

Sauvageau started attending Mass more often and spending time in Eucharistic adoration. He built a room in his house for prayer and would spend three to four hours a day in conversation with God. He became close friends with priests, including Father Michael Gutgsell, pastor of St. Cecilia Cathedral, where Sauvageau attends, and Father Tom Fangman, pastor of Sacred Heart parish.

“He is a total man of prayer,” said Father Fangman, who has known Sauvageau for about 20 years. “He puts me to shame. I wish I could pray half as much as he does. He has an incredible relationship with Our Lord.”

His faith only deepened with successive health challenges that began in 2000, with his diagnosis of hepatitis C. Sauvageau believes it was treatment for hepatitis C in 2011 that gave him drug-induced IPF. He eventually was cured of hepatitis C, but the IPF slowly took its toll. In 2014, it was exacerbated when he contracted tuberculosis.

“I never felt bad or angry at God,” he said. “I really felt blessed because what was happening was this disease was pulling me closer to Jesus, and it continued to do that, day after day after day. I’ve never felt closer to God than I have in the last year. I think the whole thing was a test. He was testing me on: How strong is your faith? And how is your endurance in your faith?”

 

The Call

Father Fangman was among the few people Sauvageau told about hearing Jesus — before news of the transplant came. Sauvageau is not one given to hyperbole, Father Fangman said. “Never, never.”

Given Sauvageau’s prayer life, he had no cause to doubt his friend.

“I wasn’t surprised,” Father Fangman said. “I believe that God was probably just blessing him for his total, total surrender and trust and calling upon and relying on the grace of God through it all. I think the Lord was blessing him by revealing that. I have no doubt about that.”

Sauvageau said he himself has been skeptical of others who claim to hear Jesus speak to them. “That’s not normal,” he said.

He shared his story nonetheless, first with his wife and then with family and close friends. He did so not for his gain, but for God’s glory, he said.

“It’s just that it was something that was going to happen, and I wanted people I knew to know that and to understand that, when it did, I’m not nuts. He really made it happen.”

It happened Saturday, Jan. 23, after Sauvageau attended 5:30 Mass at the cathedral with his wife, son and his son’s girlfriend. Afterward, they grabbed some pizza and headed home. There, Sauvageau was taking oxygen when the phone rang. Caller ID indicated it was from the transplant program nurse coordinator, Bobbi Heffelfinger.

“Can I talk to Phil?” she said.

“This is Phil. Is it time?”

“Yes,” said Heffelfinger. “They found lungs. You have to come in.”

“He’s doing it,” Sauvageau thought immediately. “I never was concerned or worried or anything. I was very at ease. I believed it would happen, and I would have believed at midnight if it took that long. But it didn’t.”

He headed to the hospital and prepped for surgery. Father Fangman administered him the anointing of the sick.

The double lung transplant started at 4:43am on Sunday, Jan. 24, and the surgery lasted approximately six hours. Dr. Aleem Siddique, surgical director of lung transplantation, performed the operation, assisted by transplant surgeon Michael Moulton.

Strah, who is not Catholic, doesn’t knock the idea that there was divine intervention.

“I personally do believe in miracles. It’s hard to work in medicine and see what I have seen without believing in miracles,” she said. “I don’t know that this is a miracle or just a really interesting coincidence, but I do think something special happened for Phil, and especially the fact he was sure it would happen and it would happen on that day.

“He was not our first patient to be put on the list. But he ended up being our first patient, and so I think that would favor there was an intervention by a higher order … an intervention by God to make sure that we did have someone who had a great motivation and a great faith.”

Immediately after waking from surgery, Sauvageau said, “Things were way better.”

Strah had him walking short distances a few times the day after surgery. She also made sure recovery included daily reception of holy Communion.

“For Phil, in particular, we felt it was very important for him to stay connected to his faith,” Strah said.

By Feb. 14, Sauvageau could walk one mile without using supplemental oxygen. He was released the next day, his lungs operating at about 55%.

“Everything just has come back much faster than the doctors ever thought it would,” he said.

For the next few months, he’ll undergo pulmonary rehabilitation every day at Nebraska Medicine. After that, he will receive checkups every few months for the rest of his life. Patients who survive their first year after a lung transplant typically live seven or eight years. Strah has seen many live 10 to 20 years, while enjoying relatively good health.

Sauvageau’s story drew widespread media coverage in print and television. He was pleased with how it was reported.

“A lot of those news stories talked about the faith and my faith in Jesus,” he said. “I didn’t think they’d bring it up, but they did. I was really, really pleased for that. I think that’s what this is all about: It’s about me helping people know him [Christ]. That’s what I think the rest of my life will be about.”

He continues that life in April when he walks his daughter down the aisle.

It will be an easy walk.

Now, he can breathe easy.

 

Register correspondent Anthony Flott writes from Papillion, Nebraska.