About Between Breaths Pediatric Lung Transplant: Before & Beyond
Between Breaths is a podcast created by a transplant mom who lived pediatric lung transplant with her son, Ryder.
This space is for families navigating life before transplant, during the hospital journey, and beyond, including the grief that often walks alongside it.
When you’re in this world, Googling at 2 a.m. leads to fear. Clinical answers don’t always give you the real-life experience you’re searching for.
Between Breaths fills the space between medical information and lived reality .... through honest conversations, shared stories, and community.
You’ll hear from transplant parents, caregivers, medical professionals, and families who understand this journey, along with reflections for those waiting, healing, surviving, or grieving.
This is not medical advice.
It’s support.
It’s shared experience.
It’s a place to feel less alone.
If you’re waiting, post-transplant, or carrying the loss of a child or friend along the way, you belong here.
Publisher
Courtney
Category
health & fitness · kids & family · society & culture
Send us Fan Mail After Ryder shared his transplant journey in Episode 9, it was time to hear from some of the friends who have walked beside our family through this world. Recorded during a special sleepover with Ryder, Jade, and Collyns, this episode brings together three people with deeply connected but very different perspectives on pediatric lung transplant. Jan shares the story of caring for her daughter Jade through serious illness, the transplant process, surgery, recovery, and life af...
9 Jul 2026
Episode 9: The Heartbeat of the Show: A Conversation with Ryder
Send us Fan Mail In this very special 9th episode of Between Breaths, the tables are turned. For the past eight episodes, I have shared our family’s pediatric lung transplant journey from my perspective as a mom. But today, the heartbeat of this entire show is sitting across the microphone from me. My son and my hero, Ryder, joins the podcast as our very first guest! We kick things off with a much-needed "Ryder’s Fact Check," where he gently (and hilariously) corrects a few "Mom mistakes" I’v...
16 Apr 2026
Rejection, Recovery, and the Fight to Keep New Lungs
Send us Fan Mail In Episode 8, I’m sharing what happened in the early weeks after Ryder’s bilateral lung transplant, when what looked like steady healing suddenly turned into another fight for his new lungs. After discharge, we were learning our new baseline through clinic visits, spirometry, wound checks, medications, and routine surveillance bronchoscopies. On the outside, Ryder looked stable and was breathing well. But a routine 6-week bronchoscopy revealed acute cellular rejection along w...
19 Mar 2026
The First Breath of a New Life
Send us Fan Mail After months of waiting in the unknown, the call finally comes. In this episode of Between Breaths, Courtney takes you inside the moment every transplant family dreams of and fears at the same time, the moment the surgery is over. From the consultation room to the ICU, this is the story of Ryder’s double lung transplant… and the first time his parents saw him with his new lungs. You’ll hear what actually happens during a lung transplant. The race against ischemic time, ...
6 Mar 2026
The Call
Send us Fan Mail What really happens when a family receives the call for a lung transplant? In this episode of Between Breaths, Courtney shares the moment her son Ryder received donor lungs after months on the pediatric lung transplant waitlist. At 7:35 AM on June 17th, 2024, my phone rang. It was a blocked number. Two minutes later, everything changed. In this deeply personal episode of Between Breaths, I share the story of the moment we received the call that donor lungs had been found for...
3 Mar 2026
Oxygen Tanks & Hard Truths: The Science of Surviving the Wait
Send us Fan Mail In Episode 5, we step away from the waiting room and into the grueling daily reality of surviving the transplant list. Because the truth is, waiting isn't quiet. It isn't sitting by a phone. It's an exhausting, physically draining marathon. I’m sharing the nitty-gritty details that no one warns you about, from doing elementary school math tethered to an oxygen concentrator, to the terrifying reality of the 6-minute walk test, to why I became fiercely unapologetic about protec...
26 Feb 2026
The In-Between Life : Waiting on the List
Send us Fan Mail Episode 4: The In-Between Life : Waiting on the List "You’re living your life, but you’re also living on a runway. And you don’t know when the plane is coming." Being “active” on the transplant list isn’t a passive wait; it’s a high-stakes, full-time job. After relocating to Houston, Courtney and Ryder entered the strange, suspended state of the "In-Between." In this episode, Courtney pulls back the curtain on their daily life. This episode serves as both a story of a mother’...
20 Feb 2026
One Last Christmas and the Math of a Miracle
Send us Fan Mail This episode of Between Breaths takes us into the delicate "in-between" of the transplant journey. The sacred, heavy space between the decision to move and the moment the phone finally rings. Courtney shares the emotional weight of choosing "one last Christmas" at home, watching her 10-year-old son, Ryder, struggle to find the breath to laugh during a season of joy. As the calendar turns to 2024, the family faces the daunting "60-minute rule," the logistical hurdle of relocat...
18 Feb 2026
The Day the Air Changed
Send us Fan Mail "I’m not leaving this hospital without the same kid I came in with." In this episode, Courtney takes us back to the "shatter point". The day a routine hospital stay for RSV turned into a race for Ryder’s life. From the silent shock of sitting on a cold hospital floor to the experimental "last chance" treatment that required a 24-hour human watcher, this is the raw history of Ryder’s journey. Courtney discusses the terrifying sounds of the PICU that still trigger medical PTSD ...
17 Feb 2026
Our Story: Ryder and the Space Between Breaths
Send us Fan Mail In this first episode of Between Breaths, Courtney shares the story behind her son Ryder’s pediatric lung transplant, and the space between fear and hope that defines this journey. From the moment transplant became real, to the waiting, the uncertainty, and the quiet strength it takes to survive it, this episode is an honest look at what life before and beyond transplant really feels like. This is not medical advice. It’s lived experience. If you are a parent navigating...
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
1 ratings
Contact Between Breaths Pediatric Lung Transplant: Before & Beyond
Guest appearances
Does not typically book guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Host of Between Breaths Pediatric Lung Transplant: Before & Beyond?
Claim your podcast to manage its listing and keep your show details accurate.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
