May 20, 2005: A story in 5 parts….stay tuned!
MAY 20, 2005: PART 3 (of 5): BACKGROUND: My husband, Rex, has been on oxygen for 6 years, the result of 35 years of smoking and emphysema. He’s down to 14% of one lung, and he’s been on the list for two months.
Preparing for Tramsplant:
2:30 p.m. I get to see you, Rex, as the doctors put it, “four beers high.” You joke with one nurse that you looked better in tie-die than he does, and you had a better ponytail before he was born! With another, you learn that you can put a DVD into an I-pod. I get to follow you through the halls.
3:00 p.m. Dr. Force recognizes me and comes over in the hall. He reports: The lungs are young and healthy. He’s pleased. I meet Mike, your super nurse. He calls me exactly when he says he will all night, every hour or two. What a tall, dark, kind, and businesslike man.
4:01 p.m. Doctors begin. Lungs are on the way, but there are storms and traffic. (A moment of panic for me…but every time I consider visualizing your situation, I stoop myself. I have no idea what you are doing or what this looks like. Let go and let God and Dr. Force and Mike…
5:00 p.m. Dan, dear friend Dan, arrives and stays with me until 9 p.m. So kind, but I can also sleep.
6:00 p.m. Mike reports that you are awaiting your lungs.
7:00 p.m. Mike reports that the lungs arrived at about 6:40. The transplant has begun. (The Merritt family here waits for a liver/kidney for their mother. Karline, the receptionist, and I wonder if it’s the same donor…it is.)
7:15 p.m. Dan and I have dinner downstairs and learn that the cafeteria closes at 8.
9:00 p.m. Mike always calls right on schedule! The right lung is IN. Not need (yet) for heart/lung support. They are beginning the left lung and will call me in an hour and 20 minutes or so, then they will scrub etc. They are very meticulous. So that takes time. Then Rex will move to ICU.
I take calls from Stacy/Lisa, Jill, Shelly. I call Steve, Mom—all is well. I’m trying to sleep again. I feel very at peace and fully trusting God and these incredible doctors.
11:00 p.m. Mike calls. My hero! Both lungs are in! They’re cleaning up, and Dr. Force will be here to answer any questions. Then Mike will take me to ICU waiting room and let the nurse know to contact me when you, my love, are ready! Hallelujah!
Midnight and into May 21, Saturday. You are in 4a, ICU, resting well with nurse Beatrice, according to your extremely handsome tall nurse, Mike, who walked me to 5th floor to rest an hour or so before seeing you.
Dr. Force says that all went really well. No surprises. No problems. Two new lungs! This donor also contributed a heart (Dr. V. did), kidney, kidney/liver (a mom of family I met, age 61), and more! Busy place tonight all thanks to one donor.
You’ll sleep tomorrow and take out the ventilator on Sunday unless you are really super tomorrow. Dr. Force and Dr. Pelaez are to take you off the Dilantin because it disrupts anti-rejection drugs. Will replace with another drug. So again, I wait, but closer and closer to my new husband! Wow!
I get to see you briefly asleep, covered, with oxygen and ventilator in ICU. Then I go and pass out at Mason House.
