“We got the call on Good Friday, for crying out loud,” said Mako Haggerty, Max’s father, in a phone interview from Seattle. “To have Max take his first breath of his own on Easter Sunday — it just added to that whole experience. It was very spiritual.”

Max Haggerty, 23, a Homer High School graduate attending the University of Oregon, Eugene, has dealt his whole life with lung problems caused by cystic fibrosis. He had been on oxygen around the clock, and his lung function was down to 20 percent.

In January he qualified for the transplant list at the UW Medical Center Thoracic Surgery Department. Homer friends set up Max’s Fund to raise money for the uninsured costs of his transplant — renting an apartment in Seattle, medical air transportation and other expenses. In one event alone, Max’s Race, a kayak event at the Kate Kuhns Aquatic Center, people raised more than $14,000.

“Without that, we’d be in dire straits,” Mako Haggerty said. “That’s going to help him after he gets out of the hospital. It helped him get up there.”

Haggerty runs Mako’s Water Taxi. Max’s mother, Alice Haggerty, is an artist and jeweler. They both had to put their jobs on hold while caring for Max.

The Haggertys stayed with Max in Eugene as they waited for “the call,” as Mako put it. They had to be in Seattle within three hours and made arrangements with a medical air taxi to fly him up to the hospital. Doctors told them to expect several dry runs.

Max was at a Portland hospital with Mako when the call came 6 p.m. April 6. Alice drove up from Eugene and met them with her sister at the UW Medical Center.

And then they waited.

“We ended up playing pinochle together until about four or five (Saturday),” Alice Haggerty said. “It was the boys against the girls. I think Max’s team won. That was a really good sign.”

Dr. Michael Mulligan, the UW Medical Center surgeon who did Max’s transplant surgery, also removed the organs from the boy who had died. Max went into surgery about 7 a.m. Saturday. Experienced with major surgery — he had a lung operation last summer — Max knew what to expect, said Alice Haggerty.

“He was just ready,” she said. “One of the last things he said before the surgery was, ‘Well, Mama, this is what we’ve been waiting for.’”

The Haggertys waited for the operation with families of two other patients, one getting a liver and one getting a heart from the boy.

“It’s terrifying. I was afraid. I was scared,” Mako Haggerty said. “A million things can happen in the operating room.”

The Haggertys praised the surgical team and the recovery nurses.

“They are great, every last one of them,” Mako Haggerty said. “We worship the ground they walk on.”

“It’s been really great watching the caliber of nursing that’s going on,” Alice Haggerty said. “Those nurses were constantly busy. They were just moving all the time.”

After the surgery and when he woke up, Max couldn’t speak because of the ventilator.

“His first communication — he wrote ‘Thank you’ on a piece of paper to the nurse,” said Amy Christiansen, Mako’s girlfriend.

The Haggertys also said they thought of the family of the boy who died and the gifts of life he gave Max and other organ recipients.

“I have nothing but the greatest respect for people who can get beyond their grief to realize that this person in death can provide life for so many more,” Mako Haggerty said. “It’s quite a loss for somebody, but an incredible gift for a number of other people. That is really 60 percent of the story.”

Alice Haggerty said before the operation she spoke with a mother whose 14-year-old son had died and who donated his organs.

“She said, ‘You know, it’s going to be such a huge piece of my healing to give that gift of life,’” Alice Haggerty said.

Max was up and walking Monday afternoon, she said. He’s still on oxygen to give his new lungs a chance to heal from the transplant.

By the end of the week, he should be out of the hospital and settling in at an apartment the Haggertys have rented near the UW Medical Center.

For the next three months, Max will be monitored daily. He will be on anti-rejection and other drugs the rest of his life.

“It’s not a bad price to pay,” Mako Haggerty said. “In some ways, he’s trading one chronic disease for another. This other chronic disease isn’t going to kill him.”

As he heals, Max will go through physical therapy to learn how to breathe with fully-functional lungs.

“One of the things they (the doctors) really want him to do and achieve is lots of exercise, lots of breathing exercises,” Alice Haggerty said. “They’re going to want him to become a pretty good walker and get those lungs moving.”

Christiansen and the Haggertys said they urge people to sign donor cards and make their wishes known before they die.

“That’s the one thing: everybody should be a donor,” Christiansen said.

“It’s important to get that word out,” Mako Haggerty said.

Waiting for Max’s transplant and then the operation has been a highly emotional series of events, the Haggertys said.

“This was definitely the most intense experience I’ve ever been through,” said Mako Haggerty. “And I’ve been through a couple of storms in the Kennedy Entrance. It pales in comparison.”

“We feel pretty blessed. It’s pretty amazing to see him come this far so quickly in so short of time,” Alice Haggerty said.

“He gets to breathe like normal people and do things like normal people. We can’t wait to get him on the tennis court,” said Mako.

“He’s been given the ultimate gift, and that’s a new life,” Alice Haggerty added. “He’s seems like he’s really ready for it.”

For updates on Max, or to make donations to Max’s Fund, visit his Web site, www.welovemax.org.