Comings and Goings

Through most of this crazy journey, my 2013 college graduate son, and his girlfriend, their cat and their dog, have been living here.  All of this occurred during their move from Redlands, CA to Austin.  Their plan was to drop their stuff, which they did, go to Alaska, which they did, and come home and move to Austin, which they were unable to do.  They actually came back early from their Alaskan adventure because Randy went on the transplant list, and stayed until this past Wednesday morning.  This has been one very tough time, for so many reasons.

Husband and father was very, very sick, and he went downhill so fast that no one really had time to comprehend or absorb what was going on.  We are a close family, and this hit my children very, very hard.  It was incomprehensible to them that they could actually lose their dad.  My son always said that he never wanted what happened to me (losing my dad when I was 25 years old to emphysema) to happen to him, he was terrified of having to go through that.  I was at the point where I didn’t believe the sarcoidosis diagnosis, and I was afraid it was Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (Lung scarring for no apparent reason), a diagnosis with a very poor prognosis, aka, “the average person lives 1-3 years after diagnosis”.  Of course there are people who live longer, and those who live shorter.  Randy was diagnosed, incorrectly, 3 years ago with Sarcoid.

If not for ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) a technique of providing both cardiac and respiratory support oxygen to patients whose heart and lungs are so severely diseased or damaged that they can no longer serve their function), Randy would not be here today.  ECMO was the last resort, and kept him alive until transplant!

So my daughter was living at home with her 2 cats and dog, Wes and Carisa stayed with their dog and cat, joining our two dogs.  Chaos!  Zoo!  It was quite stressful for all of us.  When it became clear that Randy was out of danger, I told Wes and Carisa to go to Austin and start their lives.  They can visit often, 3 hours is not that far away, and they are anxious to begin their adult lives, and they should live their lives.  We are so fortunate that they have all moved out knowing that Randy is okay, in rehab, and will come home in the next 3-4 weeks.  Yes, we are blessed, lucky, fortunate, whatever you want to call it.  Randy is a miracle.  It seems the Lung Transplant Team at UT are true miracle workers.

So, now, I have work people in and out, almost every day, trying to get the house cleaned (and I mean CLEANED), all of our “stuff” culled, the garage painted and cleaned, etc etc.  This house will not be a bubble….but it will be as close as I can get to it.  The first year is so important…and the fewer exposures to dust, spores, fungus, bacteria, viruses the better.  He’s going to get well whether he likes it or not!

And, to help him on his way, guess who is arriving tomorrow?  You got it:  the DONS!  Brian, Little Murph, Tony, Big Dave and Pete are on their way to see their fellow Don in rehab at Zale Lipshy.  They are so excited he had the transplant and is doing so well.  I’m sure it will be an interesting weekend, and you know I will blog about it soon!