Adem (2010)

Seventeen-year-old Tom has cystic fibrosis and therefore often has to spend some time in hospital. While there, he helps his criminal friend Jimmy steal medication. He meets Xavier, who is ten years older and has the same disease (they had already seen each other when they were young, at the beginning of the film). Xavier has been given an expensive car by his parents (instead of an inheritance; he will probably die before they do), goes diving, and has a girlfriend, Anneleen (who also has the same disease). She wants a child, but Xavier thinks that is questionable, given their illness and life expectancy. She breaks up with him and later becomes pregnant by another man; she has at least chosen a healthy man, not someone with an inherited disease like Xavier and herself. She is not in a relationship with him. Tom, Xavier and Anneleen take a trip to the beach. Meanwhile, a lung becomes available for transplantation for Tom’s older brother Lucas, who has the same disease. The three hurry back, but Lucas dies during the operation without Tom having had a chance to speak to him. Tom is friends with Eline, who has a dangerous contagious disease and is therefore staying in an isolation room at the hospital. They keep in touch by phone, sometimes also seeing each other through a glass partition. On the day Lucas dies, Tom disobeys the rules and enters her room, and they hug. The doctor reprimands Tom; he has to remain in isolation, at least until it is determined whether he has become infected. As a result, he cannot attend Lucas’s funeral. It later turns out that he has not been infected. One day Eline has recovered, and they are able to have normal contact. During their first meeting without glass between them, Jimmy drops by. Tom does not want to send Jimmy away and suggests the three of them go and do something together. Eline is not interested and leaves, disappointed. Years later, they get back in touch. Tom is on the waiting list for a lung transplant, but as he gets older, he decides against it because he is reluctant to live much longer, since life after such a transplant would still involve ongoing medical problems. Besides, Xavier can then get the next available lung (the same type would be suitable for both of them). Jimmy has heard that Xavier is also waiting for a lung, but not that Tom does not want a transplant, and sets out to kill Xavier so that Tom can get a lung sooner. He wants to do this not only out of friendship, but also because he makes good money from the ongoing theft of medication, which he is able to carry out thanks to Tom’s presence in the hospital. Xavier tells him that Tom does not want a new lung, thereby saving himself. One day a lung becomes available, but Xavier has a fever and cannot undergo surgery. At the doctor’s urging (there is no other patient for whom the lung is suitable), Tom agrees to have the transplant after all.