One More Drill and then THE REAL DEAL

Fire Drill #2

Well, what a week this has been. I have been slow to update the blog since our second fire drill on Monday. That’s right—a second fire drill. This one got a lot closer than the first one. Naturally, I was in Tampa on business when Sandy got the call. Beth (Sandy’s sister) was in town to stay with Sandy in my absence and was able to drive her down to Hopkins. They admitted Sandy at about 3pm, with plans to roll her in the OR at 7:30pm. Those hours were spent sucking every last drop of blood from her arms, and wheeling her around the hospital for chest xrays and other such events. And a lot of time just sitting around. I made it back on a flight and was able to connect with her in the room at about 7pm. The waiting continued for several more hours until the surgeons finally rejected that liver. It was disappointing, but not totally unexpected. These things happen. One of them will pan out.

Enough about this one—it seems a lot less interesting after the events that started yesterday (Wednesday) and that continue as I write this in the wee hours of Thursday morning.


The Real Deal

On Tuesday night, Hannah declared during dinner, “Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and I predict that Mommy is going to get her new liver tomorrow!” From the mouths of babes.

The call came, this time at about 11am. It was no coincidence, I was sure, that it happened while the East coast was being hammered with a blizzard, freezing rain and snow. Baltimore was under a sheet of ice over a few inches of new snow. That is nothing like the 18” that my hometown Chicago (poor Bears) and other parts of the Midwest were enjoying, but we had plenty of freezing rain, iced up roads, and downed power lines to make it interesting. As morbid as it sounds, the weather was working in our favor.

Sandy and I arrived at Hopkins a little before 1pm, almost nonchalant in our expectation that this too would be a fire drill. Beth left to go back to Ohio on Wednesday morning, so she was not with us. Of course, she had only made it about 70 miles west of Baltimore when Sandy called to tell her that we were on our way back down to Hopkins. I am sure she was torn—continue driving home to be with her own family (who had their own Valentine’s Day plans, complete with “Red Dinner”), or turn around and head back to Baltimore to be with her sister. Turning around would almost certainly end with her driving back to Ohio after another long and unfruitful day spent at Hopkins. The weight of considering what it would be like to be at home if this one did work out was enough to compel her to turn the car around. So there Beth and I sat with Sandy all afternoon and well into the evening. None of us was convinced that this would end any differently than Monday had.

I already said this was the real deal. You must have figured out from this that she got the liver. Not exactly—Sandy is in surgery even as I write this. It is 3:17am Thursday as I strike these keys and these hours have not passed without event.

Nurses came in to transport Sandy to the pre-op area just a little before 10pm on Wednesday. That’s right—American Idol was not over, but Sandy sucked it up and went anyway. Somehow, it just seemed inappropriate to ask them to allow us ten more minutes to see how it ended. The nurses indicated at this time that the liver was good and had been accepted by the surgical team. GAME ON.

We had known well in advance that getting her into the OR with an acceptable liver was one big part of the equation. Another part is for Sandy to pass the evaluation on the table. This evaluation includes sampling of nearby lymph nodes and other areas to rule out any spread of the cancer. A positive lymph node would kill this deal and the liver would pass to the next candidate. They anesthetized her at about 10:15pm and began the procedure at 11:43pm. At about 2:00am, a surgical nurse called to tell me that they had completed the step of gathering all the samples they would need and that they would call me back shortly with the results. Fifteen minutes later, she called again and told us that the doctors were satisfied with what they saw and would proceed with the transplant. That’s the news we were looking for. NOW WE’RE REALLY IN THE GAME.

I don’t mind admitting to you that my greatest fear in this process has been that I would be faced with the painful obligation of telling Sandy and the girls that the doctors could not perform the transplant because the lymph nodes were positive. This was also Sandy’s greatest fear, the fear of supreme disappointment and the despair that would result. At about 2:15 this morning, I knew that none of us would be faced with that disappointment. Thankfully, that moment would not come.
Just a few minutes before 5:00am, the surgical nurse called again. This time, her progress report told us that they had finished removing Sandy’s diseased liver.

The next few hours were spent implanting the new liver. A second procedure, called a Whipple, was also required to resect some area outside of the biliary tree and near the pancreas. The head of the pancreas was actually removed and the surrounding structure was reconstructed. Yes, that’s two major GI surgeries back to back.

It is now 10am, and Dr. Malley just came out to talk with us. The transplant team is working on closing her up and will take her to the Surgical ICU. Sandy will be kept unconscious for at least another day (possibly two) and then transferred to the transplant unit for recovery. The original expectation was that she would be there for perhaps a week, maybe longer. I am told that only immediate family can visit on the transplant unit.

This should bring you up to speed for now. I’ll post more as things develop. You have all been incredibly gracious through this and we appreciate all the love and support you have shown Sandy and our family. We’re going to need you now, too.

I should note that Sandy cannot accept flowers now or in the future. They will not be allowed on the floor of the transplant unit and she will not be allowed to have them at home, either. Fungus-bacteria-goopy stuff on flowers and in the soil is bad…

Stay tuned.