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Karen Erickson, with lung function under 20% and in need of a transplant, still teaching people about Alpha-1
Ventura County Star
THOUSAND OAKS, California — Karen Erickson was told she had two years to live 11 years ago.
The 45-year-old woman with lungs that work at less than 20 percent was diagnosed with a disease so little-known that the physician’s assistant who delivered the news didn’t get it quite right.
“She said: ‘You have Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency. Your body is eating your own lungs,’ “ Erickson said. “She said, ‘There’s no cure, but if we get you on treatment, we think we could get you a couple more years.’ … I thought: What the hell?”
Karen Erickson, a longtime fundraiser for the Alpha-1 Foundation’s research programs and speaker at education days and other awareness events, exercises in her garage. (Ventura County Star photo)
Today, the biotech training manager wears a black backpack for the small tank that delivers oxygen through clear tubes that hiss when she inhales. She uses two tanks when she pedals the wheels of her stationary bike at a speed that wouldn’t keep her upright outdoors.
Everything in her life — the exercise, the 50-foot lifeline that leashes her to an oxygen concentrator when she sleeps, the speeches to people with similar disorders and the double lung transplant she hopes will come within a year — return to one goal. She wants to help people understand the disease that forced her to take control of her life.
