Celebrating a beautiful Alaskan life and living with heart failure!
The heart was found to be defective. It will take a bit to process this. We are disappointed, but blessed with some family time with Patrick.
He only had needles and tubes in him when they found out, so this is just another bump in the road.
Thank you for your prayers, everyone.
Call #4 has come in and it's starting at 4pm today. We don't have days to prepare like previous calls so we have decided that the kids and I will fly down today or tomorrow, whenever I can arrange flights.
Please pray! The doctors say they want to go ahead and get started soon.
I panicked and asked a kid at the high school what his name was, and explained why. Thus, this donor is Jayden until/unless we find out otherwise.
A week ago Patrick received his third transplant call. With this one the emotions snuck up on me, and this past week has been heavy and not conducive to writing an update. But more has happened in the last couple of days that warrants this post.
First, this third call didn’t last long in comparison to the second one. Patrick’s phone rang on Saturday at 8:00am to say a heart was available, and it rang again at 2:30pm to say the transplant was canceled. The heart was found to be not optimal for transplantation.
In that time I had the kids halfway packed, I had made arrangements for the dog, arranged for my plane ticket the following day, and prepared myself for the awful truth of imminent heart transplantation.
I made plans with a gentleman who wished to buy a knife, leaving him a voicemail that was both the fastest and the clearest I have ever spoken. During that one minute message I realized I was amped. It felt like I had shotgunned my morning pot of coffee. A coffee bong instead of a beer bong. Some of you will be able to visualize that.
The highlight of the day was the gentleman who purchased the knife, who knew the day’s circumstances and who returned post-cancellation call to ask how things were progressing. The humanity displayed in that small gesture was humbling. I had to tell him the bad news. It wasn’t meant to be.
The kids and I left the shop early that day. I don’t remember what we did but I know our day ended with unpacking - putting my toothbrush back on the shelf, my clothes back in the drawer, and having the very confused golden retriever watch as I emptied the bag of dog toys onto the floor.
I remember feeling the complete opposite of what the morning had caused. I was coming down off the high caused by the necessity to completely uproot my family and the knowledge that trauma waited for us just around the corner. I didn’t have to imagine not being able to see Patrick before he went in for surgery. I could let go of the visions of him on a hospital bed, covered in tubes and drains, his eyes taped shut and his chest incision exposed. I remember the noises and the smells of the hospital recovery room from his bypass in 2007 and imagine the transplant will be incredibly similar, only… worse.
I remember sitting on the couch that night watching something on the television, but feeling that ever-present sensation of flux - that this wasn’t the one, but another one is coming. I think it would be similar to being directed to walk into someone else’s house, told that this was your living room, your couch, your television, and all the while thinking that you didn’t belong there. It is an unsettling sensation.
I named this donor Brandon. I wondered if Brandon’s family went through similar thoughts and emotions that we did - the suddenness of the call and the subsequent cancellation. But I have a constant awareness in my mind, helped along by the humanization of naming our donors when we will never truly know these men or their families, that they are going through something far worse than what Patrick and I are.
They are losing sons. Fathers. Uncles. Brothers. Nephews. It’s final. There is no alternative.
I stand to gain decades with my husband, benefiting from their unimaginable tragedy. I only hope when the time comes, that they will want to get to know us. I pray they see the product of their sacrifice in Patrick’s love for his family, and in his faith and his service centered heart. I want them to be our new family, if they will have us.
Of course, both Patrick and I are aware some donor families don’t wish for that. It’s too hard. It’s too difficult to know their loved one is gone and someone else’s is thriving at that person’s expense.
This is where I say, in either scenario we give them love. Unconditional, never truly understood love. We don’t know what they are going through, but we feel a deep, profound love for every single one of these gentlemen - Steve, Alex, Brandon - their families, and the ones who will come. It is unexplainable, but I also feel like we don’t have to explain it. I hope they understand.
On Wednesday night Patrick told me he felt like he was coming down with a cold. He was much worse Thursday, but Patrick is a stubborn man. I told him to go to the hospital but he insisted it was just a bad cold.
When his heart began to feel sick he decided to go in. It’s Covid, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. Our first bout with the virus in March 2020 was brutal. That first wave hit us like a freight train and my two weeks of symptoms ended with the only time I have ever been afraid I was going to die - when my lungs started to feel tight. This wasn’t a welcome sensation after already hearing for several weeks that ventilators and death were common destinations for people who experienced lung trouble.
After two weeks I became worse before I got better. Patrick is fully vaccinated, which is a requirement for transplant eligibility. He is also wise to the disease this time around, and knows what it can do. My prayer is this bout with Covid is swift, and that healing comes fast. I never imagined having to fly to Washington for any reason other than a transplant.
Patrick is home and resting, but completely wiped out. While I wish I could be there for him, I’m glad he’s in good hands and is surrounded by good people who care about him.