Like so many health care workers battered by the pandemic, Kari Wegg is searching for footing in a life after COVID. But the scars across her chest and neck are constant reminders that it takes much more than a shot in the arm to get there.

In June, an Illinois woman became the first COVID-19 patient in the U.S. to receive a life-saving double-lung transplant -- after the virus irreversibly damaged her lungs. She is recovering but it hasn't been easy.

For two months, the patient was in the intensive care unit on a ventilator and another machine that pumps and oxygenates blood outside of the body. She eventually cleared the coronavirus from her body, but remained in severe condition.

Across the country, nearly 95,000 people are waiting for a kidney transplant. And the list has been growing for years. That's pushed some people to try unusual ways to find donors.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the United Network for Organ Sharing adopted the new policy based it on faulty assumptions, according to the suit filed Monday in federal court.

Nearly 100,000 people are waiting for a kidney transplant in the U.S., but many will never get one. Instead they'll stay on dialysis for the rest of their lives. A team of doctors has found a possible solution, by infecting patients with a potentially fatal virus.