MOULTRIE, Ga. — Bonnie Griner received an outstanding birthday present Monday.

Griner, a Moultrie cystic fibrosis patient, has been seeking a double lung transplant. She was placed on a waiting list at Duke University about two weeks ago after lengthy preparations.

Karen Thompson — public relations coordinator for Breathe for Bonnie, a fund-raising effort for Griner — emailed The Observer about 3:15 p.m. Monday: “Bonnie got her new lungs today … out of surgery about an hour ago … so now recovery … today is her 38th birthday.”

Griner was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis when she was 5. She had already passed two ages at which doctors had estimated her life expectancy — a salute to medical advances in the treatment of the genetic disease. The third prediction was 37 years.

Cystic fibrosis is a disease that changes how your body makes mucus and sweat, according to the website WebMD.com. It affects how well your lungs, digestive system and some other body parts work. It’s caused by a flawed gene.

Griner was coping with the disease, including frequent rounds of antibiotics, until about two years ago when she contracted an infection. Her lung function, which was already less than normal, dropped dramatically, and she didn’t tolerate well the strong antibiotics used against this particular bacteria.

She was rejected for a lung transplant by Emory University and was still being considered by the University of Alabama at Birmingham when Duke agreed to consider her. She’s been living in North Carolina since late February and undergoing tests and therapy at Duke in preparation for the transplant.

A color run will be held Saturday at Spence Field, one of several fundraisers planned throughout this year to help Griner’s family and others through the Children’s Organ Transplant Association. Breathe for Bonnie is the local organization sponsoring those fundraisers.