usy Dirr’s father, Mike, is one of the world’s leading horticulturists, and he has worked his share of festivals. Today’s gathering, held near the former Athens residents’ new home in Chapel Hill, N.C., has nothing to do with flowers or shrubs, but Mike is working the crowd just as hard. “He doesn’t like to sit down for more than five minutes,” says Susy, her speech punctuated by sharp intakes of breath from a portable oxygen tank.

Mike, who wears a red Georgia Bulldog visor as a testament to his long years on the UGA faculty, wades into a steady stream of passersby. He greets the occasional familiar face and tries to draw the unfamiliar ones to the “Lungs For Christian” booth that he and Susy and his wife Bonnie have maintained since noon.

“[My parents] did all the physical setup this morning,” says Susy (ABJ ’99). “They’ll do just about anything.”

The Dirrs’ booth, tucked away in the non-profit section of the annual Apple Chill street festival, offers various homemade items for sale. Their goal is to raise money for Christian Suth-erland, a 19-year-old cystic fibrosis patient who needs help paying for the lung transplant he received three months ago.

“That's the cheesy Carolina donor booth?” Susy wisecracks as she notices another pro-donor kiosk across the way. “And I thought they were going to be competition.”

Organizing the booth, like many things in Susy's life, has been a group effort. The original landscape paintings were done by Bonnie. Christian’s mother, Terri, painted the birdhouse gourds and crocheted the doll dresses. The postcards were sketched by Susy, who also put together the organ donor buttons, ribbons, bumper stickers, and coffee mugs that read “Recycle yourself.”

“We’re crafty people . . . plus, we have plenty of time on our hands waiting for a lung transplant,” deadpans Susy, who needs a lung transplant.

Only in her case, it would be lung transplant No. 2.

An Athens native who never let CF affect her performance in the classroom, Susy was valedictorian at Oconee County High School in Watkinsville. She graduated near the top of her UGA class with a degree in advertising. Even more remarkable: It took her only three years to complete her coursework.

“My senior year of high school, I missed 22 days in one semester due to illness,” says Susy. “I was blessed to have great friends and teachers who were willing to adapt their schedules to my recovery. I had to work twice as hard as most people because I was sick so often. But I always made it through.”

I would go to class even if I felt like I needed to be in the hospital. I took my political science final with a raging case of pneumonia. — Susy Dirr (ABJ ’99)

Since college-level classes seldom allow for extensive absences, Susy had to rely on her own determination and the support of friends and classmates.

“I would go to class even if I felt like I needed to be in the hospital. I took my political science final with a raging case of pneumonia,” says Susy matter-of-factly. “I went to all of my journalism classes with my IVs. I would cut up a colorful sock and wear it over my arm so people wouldn't get grossed out.”

Showing up for class attached to an IV earned her the nickname “bionic woman” from her advertising classmates, who often went out of their way to help her.

“When we had to work in groups,” says Susy, “they would come to my house if I had an IV treatment, so it would be easier for me. I want to thank those people for going the extra mile for me.”

During her time at UGA, Susy wrestled with whether a degree was worth the trouble for someone with a limited life expectancy.

“There were times in college when I thought about dropping out because I was afraid I was wasting my time when I needed to be relishing every day that was left of my life. That’s a pretty scary thing to think about when you’re 19 years old—but every cystic fibrosis patient has to confront these issues.”

Susy’s condition deteriorated after graduation to the point where she had to be placed on disability. She was, however, able to briefly put her artistic talents to work by doing graphic design for Cofer’s Home and Garden in Athens.

ike Dirr enjoys rock star status in the horticulture world. He’s written numerous books, served as director of UGA’s State Botanical Garden of Georgia, and done planting and design work in the yard of his friend Vince Dooley. But shortly after Susy’s first lung transplant in 2001, she began battling chronic organ rejection. The nature of this new illness meant having to be close to a treatment facility.

“The first time around it was more like, ‘You’re first on the list. Get up here,’ ” says Susy. “The second time, I was too sick to be in Athens. For a transplant person, life and death is a matter of minutes. When I started getting sick again, I knew we had to move up here.”

It quickly became clear that she would need a second lung transplant—which was devastating news for a family that had hoped the first procedure would mean a new life for Susy, who wondered if she’d get a second chance.

“For two days, I was rolled up in a fetal position,” says Susy of those unhappy days. “I didn't want to believe.”

Susy is telling this story while her best friend’s giggling twin daughters have made her the center of their play time. She shoos her “adopted nieces” away and reaches for a portable blood sugar monitor. Susy must also keep tabs on her diabetes, a condition that resulted from large doses of the steroid Prednisone administered to her to battle the organ rejection. Having checked the sugar monitor, she resumes the story of her family’s transplanted life in Chapel Hill.

“When we first moved here, we had an apartment—which was a nightmare because Dad has to have a garden.”

The Dirrs later purchased a house with a good-sized flower bed for Mike to tend and he has been able to continue on at the University for a day or two a week, researching the development of superior plant cultivars through the Center for Applied Nursery Research in Dearing. He has also written another book, solely on the subject of hydrangeas, which is to be released by Timber Press in June.

“I miss it,” says Mike of his faculty days. “But I like being home five days a week. And I don't drive Susy too crazy.”

Mike and Bonnie have joined a tennis club in an effort to maintain some semblance of a middle-aged social life, but it’s difficult to settle into a routine when you live in a constant state of anticipation—waiting for a phone call from the transplant center.

Since moving to Chapel Hill, Team Dirr has had to endure two agonizing false alarms in which Susy went through arduous preparations for emergency transplant surgery only to discover that the available lungs were not a proper match. That process, which involves blood withdrawal and medication over a seven-hour time period, left all three family members physically and emotionally drained.

I allow myself to look ahead, but I’m not unrealistic. I will never have children and I may never make it to a midlife crisis. That’s okay with me. I’ve come to terms with the life that’s been laid before me. — Susy Dirr (ABJ ’99)

“It was particularly distressing,” says Susy of the false alarms. “I got one of the calls on the third anniversary of my last transplant. I thought it was fate.”

Susy’s parents maintain a relaxed and positive attitude, but her struggle to stay alive takes its toll on everyone.

“My parents’ big thing is, ‘Why you? Why do you have to go through this?’ ” says Susy. “And I don't have an answer to that. My parents have had to put their lives on hold. But they’d do anything to take care of me.”

Susy’s treatment schedule is demanding. A typical day begins at 7:30 a.m. She spends her morning hooked up to a machine in her bedroom that delivers three hours worth of intravenous medication to battle infection and rejection. This is followed by two hours of physical therapy to ensure that her body will be strong enough to sustain a second transplant procedure should the opportunity arise. Most days also include a couple of hours of breathing treatment and additional intravenous antibiotics. This schedule rules out a job and many other activities common to people in their mid-20s.

“I probably have time for a social life, but there’s no way to meet people when you're always at the hospital,” says Susy. “If I weren't here in Chapel Hill, I would want to be making a living and living a normal life. I want to be able to travel and spend time with my family. Nothing extravagant, just a simple life.”

The Dirrs’ lives are not without a sense of community. Susy is one of many transplant patients in Chapel Hill, and shared adversity breeds familiarity. “Everybody is really, really close knit when you come into this situation,” says Susy.

s the Apple Chill Festival winds down, Susy's transplant coordinator and a research doctor stop by the “Lungs for Christian” booth.

“When Christian was dying, everybody was praying for him,” says Susy. “And now everybody is doing the same for me.”

The prospect of a second lung transplant—and the dangers inherent in such a procedure—bring mixed feelings of hope and trepidation. Transplants are risky, they require long recovery periods, and, while they can subdue the most dangerous respiratory effects of CF, they do not guarantee perfect health or long life.

“With any transplant, there are risks,” says Susy. “Things can go wrong. A lot of CF people won’t go through the transplant process. They feel like they’re just trading one disease for another. They’d rather just pass away. I’ve never understood that . . . it’s just not in me.”

Transplants are also terribly expensive, and insurance companies will only contribute so much money.

“I’m rapidly reaching my lifetime cap,” says Susy, whose policy has a $1 million lifetime limit. A typical lung transplant costs between $250,000 and $500,000—for the procedure alone. So far, the Dirrs have not had to resort to outside fundraising.

Other families, such as the Sutherlands, are not so fortunate. Christian’s father has had trouble finding work in Chapel Hill—which is why the Dirrs are staffing the organ donor booth on this steamy April afternoon. According to Susy, helping others in her position isn’t just the right thing to do as a member of the transplant patient community. It’s also cathartic for her and her family.

“Buy, people! Buy! Buy! Buy!” Susy urges from her seat at the back of the canopied booth. But if any of the festival-goers heard her, they don’t stop and take notice.

The afternoon sun begins to dip in the sky. Mike is still working the crowd, but he hasn’t been as successful as Bonnie, who has been moving baked goods at an impressive clip.

“We’ve made about $70,” says Susy. “So we only need to make about $300,000 more.”

“How much for the bumper stickers?” asks a passerby.

“Forty dollars,” says Susy.

“They’re free . . . it’s for the greater good,” says Mike, who then directs the customer’s attention to the other items on the shelf.

“No pressure tactics, Dad,” warns Susy, an admonition that Mike gleefully ignores.

Susy and her parents laugh. It’s what you do when you’ve come to accept the futility of tears.

For the Dirrs, every day is normalcy punctuated with a sense of urgency, of routine intermingled with gnawing anticipation, of the simple joys of family life balanced against the burdens of coping with a life-threatening illness. It’s a challenge Susy and her parents meet without hesitation, taking the good and the bad as it comes.

“You can’t escape the sadness,” says Susy, resolute as she watches the afternoon crowd stream up and down Franklin Street. “There are wonderful things and horrible things.”

As the days fly by, Susy subsists on a powerful tonic of hope and acceptance.

“I allow myself to look ahead, but I’m not unrealistic,” she says. “I will never have children and I may never make it to a mid-life crisis. That’s okay with me. I’ve come to terms with the life that’s been laid before me. I’ve had a wonderful 27 years. I was blessed with the greatest family a person could ask for. I have had great love and great friendships. I’ve traveled the world and seen things most people can only dream of. I’ve experienced more in my 27 years than most people do in 80. What more can you ask for from life?”

Josh Darnell is a senior journalism major from Watkinsville. As Georgia Magazine was going to press, he got a surprising e-mail message from the Dirr family. If you haven’t already done so, turn to p. 1 for the latest news on Susy’s battle with cystic fibrosis.