Getting to the hospital on time!

After receiving that all important call our task was to get to the hospital by 4 PM.  Our daughter Stefane leaves work, arrives at our door "dghter on duty" to help with whatever is to come.  She is so wonderful - we are truly grateful to have her close by and caring. 

Clay at the backdoor as we left for
hospital; pointing at the portable
oxygen he hopes to never have to
carry again.



We have waited years for this special call, been on the list for 14 months before, spent 10 years going to monthly support group meetings where we heard all about what that call was going to be like.  Now we actually get it and it isn't anything at all like we had prepared for.   

Anyone waiting for a transplant (lung anyway) had to be within a 3 hour range of getting to the hospital.  Which is why I was so uncomfortable being at our weekend place on Whidbey Island; what if the power went out (cell phones didn't work there)? What if the ferry was late?  And why people on the list have to move to Seattle regardless of where they normally live (Montana, Idaho, Northern CA, Oregon). 



We get the call but we're told that surgery won't be until the middle of the nite and to just take our time getting to the hospital; don't deal with rush hour traffic.  We hadn't planned on that.  Now we had too much time on our hands!
For those of you who have scheduled a time to meet with Clay (for whatever reason) during any number of years; you know that he never gets anywhere on time.  I say this now because I can, because he is not right here to correct me.  Clay will adamently tell you that he is not always late; those of us waiting for him know he is!  We love you Clay, but you are not a punctual person. 

Another thing about those on transplant lists; the vast majority that get the call have at least one "dry run" in which they get called in only to be sent home again.  Even during that marathon 14 months on the list previously we never received a call.  So heading out this time we couldn't help but wonder if this was going to be Clay's dry run. 

We had been told that Clay was to receive one lung and someone else would get the other.  We were also encouraged when told that the team knew the lungs were in great shape which eliminated the prospect of finding the donor lungs were not viable.  We felt that with both of these pieces the chances were heavily weighed in favor of the transplant actually happening. 

We get to the hospital around 4:40 (see!  There were several stops we needed to make on the way to the hospital, according to Clay, as well as his waiting to the last minute to shower), check in goes smoothly (you would have thought we were buying a house!), and when all forms were signed and the admit person calls up to the floor we find out that there is no room yet.  We were told to go and have dinner since there were hours before surgery, so we did.  Obviously, getting there on time wasn't as essential as we had thought. 

By the time we have dinner in the cafeteria (hospital food, obviously we needed to get used to it) and went back to admissions the room was close to being ready.  We were sent to 5 SouthEast, told to check in at nurse's station.  We didn't realize that 5 SE is ICU until we arrived.   But in we went, Clay settled in, tests were done, and the wait for the morning began.  Notice the time on the clock when Clay was able to finally get into the room and "gown up."



Since we knew that someone else was receiving the "other" lung we were guessing who that might be.  We had it down to only two of the people in our support group that we figured might be the other recipient. 

When we arrived at the ICU we ran into the wife of someone in our group and they were one of the two that we had guessed!  Regardless of who the other person was we would celebrate with them as we know exactly what they have been experiencing.  The other recipient was a man about Clay's age, who also had IPF, and has been on the list for 7 months.

When I was writing my last blog I had meant to discuss one other person when referring to the 1st and last lung recipients of 2010.  Having not discussed them was purely my error.  During each support group we go around the room, introduce each person, state the disease, post or pre transplant, and discuss any issues that are personal to them.  One gentleman sitting next to me explained that he had IPF, been called for a transplant last summer but had been just getting over phenumonia - which eliminated him from a transplant at the time.  He was then called again in October, but told that he would be the backup to receive a single lung if the other recipient didn't require both of them. 

Unfortunately for him, the other person received both lungs.  As we continued around the room another gentleman stated that he was the one that had received both of those lungs in October!  I swear, these group meetings are amazing. 

But this is the gentleman, Doug, was to receive one lung while Clay received the other!  Is life amazing or what?  I guess one could say that while Clay never received his "dry run" Doug had two of them so it balanced out in the end. 

Stefane and I remained there during the night.  Clay was able to sleep due to pain meds he was given for his chronic neck pain.  Stef and I were completely unable to sleep at all.  During all the training on what to expect we were told to plan on being with the transplantee 24/7 for the time they are in the hospital (largely to learn what to do for them later after they were home) and that there would be cots provided.

Unfortunately, there were non available since the ICU was full.  We have no idea what other people were there for, we just knew that we were incredibly uncomfortable in chairs or on the couches in the lounge and thus there was no sleep that nite for us. But things do happen as they should; Stef and I were moving between Clay's room and the lounge area around 2 AM when we ran into someone who was also just passing time.  She stated that she was there for her father, who was scheduled to receive a heart transplant around 8 AM.   

Through one process or another we discovered that the donor for Clay was a very healthy teenage boy, lived in Alaska, his lungs were very healthy due to not being on life support for long or having endured vigorous CPR.  His lungs were to provide a new life for Clay and Doug, and Greg was receive his heart.  Other organs that were transplanted here at UWMC from this boy were his liver, kidney, and pancreas. 

Now we just needed to wait for the morning and find out what happened at that point.