Who Decides Whether This 26-Year-Old Woman Gets A Lung Transplant?

This is the first of two stories we’re doing this week on organ transplants. See the second story, What Air Traffic Can Teach Us About Kidney Transplants

Ashley Dias, 26, is waiting for lungs. She has cystic fibrosis and needs a lung transplant to survive. She’s got a tracheostomy tube in her neck so she can only mouth out words.

When doctors come to see Ashley in her hospital room at the Cleveland Clinic, she has only one question. She pulls out a marker and writes in enormous capital letters, as if it’s the only thing she’s ever wanted a voice to say: