Man received late football player Chris Henry’s lungs! Henry’s mom meets and listens to his lungs.

Posted by Sabrina B. @gametimegirl

A struggling-to-breathe Chatham man got the best Christmas present last year — a pair of lungs and the chance at a longer life.

Tom Elliott, 64, said he couldn’t have gotten a better pair of lungs. The tragic death of Cincinnati Bengalswide receiver Chris Henry on Dec. 16 last year and donation of his organs allowed Elliott and others to live.

When Elliott met Henry’s mom Carolyn Glaspy on Nov. 6, he told her, “I’m so sorry that your son had to give up so much for this to be possible for me.”

Glaspy and Elliott and three other donor recipients met for CBS Sports’ filming of a special memorial story for “The NFL Today” that aired on Thanksgiving Day.

Glaspy made the decision to donate her son’s organs after he fell from a moving vehicle in Charlotte, N.C., and died a day later from his injuries. For the TV show, four of the donor recipients — including Elliott, kidney recipient Brian Polk, kidney and pancreas recipient Donna Arnold and liver recipient James Benton — recounted their struggles and their joy at hearing the news they would receive their transplants.

Elliott hoped the meeting brought Glaspy closure. He recalled how she took a stethoscope to his chest, listened to the lungs and “went all to pieces,” crying.

The Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, N.C., and its organ procurement partner LifeShare of theCarolinas helped set up the meeting. Most of the transplant surgeries were performed at the Carolinas Medical Center, except for Elliott’s. The lung transplant took place at Duke University Medical Center.

“I’m very high on Duke,” Elliott said. “They more or less saved my life.”

Elliott first knew something was wrong when his chest started hurting one day. He knew it wasn’t a heart attack but it felt like “burning.” He started losing his breath and he attributed his problems to smoking roughly two packs of cigarettes a day since he was 15.

In 2001, doctors first diagnosed Elliott with respiratory bronchiolitis-associated interstitial lung disease. That’s when Elliott quit smoking after 40 years.

A few years later, he was diagnosed with emphysema.

“It progressively got worse,” Elliott said.

The Goodyear retiree lost all his energy, lost weight and looked “sickly.”

Then, about a year and a half ago, he found out the true cause of his breathing problems. Dr. Borna Mehradat University of Virginia Medical Center diagnosed him with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis — a scarring of the lungs with no known cause and no known treatment. All Mehrad could suggest was a lung transplant.

“I just about went off,” Elliott recalled. “I knew things were getting serious.”

He started using oxygen and researched how and where he would get a lung transplant, if he could.

Elliott learned Duke performed about four times more lung transplants than U.Va., so he decided he needed to go to Duke. He went through 23 days of rehabilitation and was put on the transplant waiting list at 5 p.m. on Dec. 16. At 7:30 the next morning, he got the call that Duke had a set of lungs.

Within 10 days of being listed, he underwent surgery to receive his new lungs. Post-surgery, Elliott recalls a rough time with tubes and a regimen of shots, medicines and tests every day. He had a feeding tube and didn’t eat for more than 40 days.

At first, he hated his nurses for making him walk around. His sons Lance, 39, and Brian, 36, and cousinDarryl Patterson took turns staying in the apartment to make sure someone was by Elliott’s side 24/7.

Elliott spent almost four weeks in the hospital then another 23 days in a nearby apartment.

Now, although he is fighting off a recent virus, he recommends Duke to everyone. He feels 100 percent different from before the surgery.

Brian said he caught his dad weed-eating his yard — something he hadn’t done for 10 years. Lance said his dad would get winded like someone with asthma.

Elliott can now enjoy his grandsons more. Even carrying around an oxygen tank, he still went to watch them play baseball last year. He continues his exercise at Perfect Body Fitness Center in Danville to take care of his health.

He calls himself a “young 64.” Now he jokes the rest of his body won’t keep up with his 27-year-old lungs.

Not a football fan, when Elliott found out to whom his lungs originally belonged, he started watching football videos of Henry. He handed Henry’s mom a thank you letter on Nov. 6 for making the choice to donate his organs.

“I’m very optimistic I’m going to keep on as long as I can,” he said. “Life is better now probably than it’s been in a long time.”

By TARA BOZICK