Amanda De Melo never thought she was sick enough to warrant a lung transplant.

Diagnosed with cystic fibrosis – a genetic disease with no cure that causes severe respiratory problems – at the age of just five months, De Melo had been in and out of hospitals all her life.

She had even turned down a transplant once before, fearful that she’d be taking lungs away from someone who truly needed them.

“They wanted me to get a transplant when I was 16, but there was no way I was going to do it,” says the humanities graduand, who will cross the stage at convocation June 11 in front of her family. “I thought, there are people sicker than me, they should be in line first.”

Little did she know, the disease had ravaged her lungs, leaving her in dire need of a transplant.

Cystic fibrosis affects the digestive system and the lungs, where it causes a build-up of thick mucus. This makes it difficult for the body to clear bacteria from the lungs, leading to inflammation, infection, lung damage and, for one Canadian each week, death.

De Melo says that it often felt like she was breathing through a straw.

She was placed on the transplant list in June 2009, between her first and second years at McMaster. On November 9, 2009, she underwent the double lung transplant – 14 hours of surgery, despite the fact that she had also contracted the H1N1 virus.

“My heart stopped twice during the procedure,” says De Melo, who studied English and religious studies at McMaster. “The surgeons told my parents my lungs were almost completely shot.”

Though she battled lung infections throughout her first year at McMaster, De Melo managed to complete the year on time. After receiving the transplant and being put into a medical coma to fight H1N1, she had to quit school – though only temporarily.

“I don’t let myself give up,” she says. “Quitting school for good never even crossed my mind.”

De Melo spent weeks in the Toronto General Hospital’s transplant ward, undergoing physiotherapy and counseling. She returned to Hamilton in March, and went back to school in May.

In fact, De Melo even did school work while in the hospital. She then made up the courses she missed during the last few summers.

“I’m used to it. I grew up like that. I’m used to having to teach myself what I need to know,” she says.

De Melo says she had a completely different outlook on school and homework than many of her peers.

“For my friends, being sick off school meant staying home and watching Netflix. For me, being away from school meant hospitals, tests and antibiotics,” she says. “Going to school, seeing friends, talking to profs – that was my way of being normal. There were weeks at a time where I couldn’t go to class. Being in hospital and having homework kept me going. I didn’t want to just lie there. Without it, I wouldn’t have been as driven to get better.”

De Melo and her classmates will graduate June 11 at 2:30 p.m. at Hamilton Place. Grammy and Juno award-winning opera singer Michael Schade will be presented with an honorary degree at the ceremony.