CYSTIC FIBROSIS PATIENTS GET NEW LEASE ON LIFE.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Daily News Staff Writer

When David Avant was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at age 5, doctors told his parents that he would not live past 18.

The disease ravages the lungs, killing half its victims by age 30.

Avant missed simple pleasures that most people take for granted: eating ice cream, playing softball, washing a favorite car.

But a lung transplant operation 2-1/2 years ago - using his parents as donors - changed his life.

``It's the closest thing to a cure,'' said Avant, now a 23-year-old graphic artist, married three weeks.

To raise money in support of research to find a cure for the leading genetic killer of children and young adults, local Cystic Fibrosis Foundation members will hold a Bowl For Breath fund-raiser from noon to 4 p.m. Nov. 9 at Brunswick Vista Lanes in Palmdale. For more information, call [phone].

The annual bowlathon raises more than $1.5 million nationally, officials said. Locally, the fund-raiser netted $5,700 last year and $6,850 the year before. This year's target is $10,000.

Avant and fellow cystic fibrosis sufferers Kim Swaim and Jessica Mobley got together last week to talk about their experiences with the disease, as a promotion for the local fund-raiser and to tell how research has led to advances like the lung transplants, pioneered three years ago on Quartz Hill resident Stacy Sewell.

Swaim, 30, underwent a lung transplant two months ago; her older sister died 20 years ago of cystic fibrosis, which is an inherited disease that causes sticky mucus to form in the body, clogging lungs and the digestive tract.

Like Avant, Swaim says she would have died within six months without the transplant.

``They're making a lot of advances with cystic fibrosis,'' Swaim said. ``With the help of research and funds, they are able to come up with things like this (the lung transplant operation) to help extend our lives.''

Swaim, who lives in Oxnard but whose parents live in Lancaster, worked as an administrative coordinator at Amgen before her own worsening condition forced her to quit.

``Before, I was on five liters of oxygen. Basically my day consisted of watching TV all day. I couldn't get out and do much. Now, I'm never home.''

Jessica Mobley is 12, and she and her parents hope that medical advances will find a cure for cystic fibrosis before her breathing ability worsens to the point an operation is necessary.

While not ill enough to require a transplant, since age 9 months she has had to deal with a regimen that includes breathing treatments three times a day to keep her airway clear. She swallows some 20 pills a day.

She has endured two stomach surgeries and numerous hospitalizations.

Jessica said carrying books to class at Desert Christian School is a burden.

``I take only a few books at a time,'' she said.

Jessica herself has been active in fund raising for the foundation. Last year, she raised $730 by asking friends and people at school, church and businesses for money.

Avant and Swaim both underwent double-donor transplants of the type first used on Stacy Sewell, who made history in 1993 when doctors removed her lungs and replaced them with parts of her parents' lungs.

It marked the first time that two living donors were used in a lung transplant. Previously, doctors waited for lung donations from accident victims or used a single living donor.

Sewell died two years later after a sudden onset of bacterial pneumonia.

In the operation, doctors take one lobe each from relatives. A pair of lungs has five lobes.

Avant's 7-1/2-hour operation was the 12th since Sewell's and has given him a breathing capacity 98 percent of normal. Swaim's was the 41st and gave her a 70 percent to 80 percent breathing capacity.

``I feel great. I play softball two nights a week,'' Avant said. ``The doctors are amazed now.''

One of the first things Avant did after the operation was wash his car, a 1992 Camaro, said his mother, Sharon Avant.

``All he wanted to do was wash his car. He had no energy to do it before,'' she said. ``We have a picture with him and his IV washing the car.''

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Photo: (color in AV only) Cystic fibrosis patients, from le ft, Kim Swaim, 30, Jessica Mobley, 12, and David Avant, 23, recently talked about their disease in Lancaster.

Jeff Goldwater/Daily News