A True Thanks Giving

Thanksgiving has never been a favorite holiday for me.  It has always meant, “ok, now it is time for the real holiday season”…and it means mashed potatoes.  With gravy.  Anyway, this year is different. Thanksgiving 2013 is, for our family and friends, a true Thanks Giving.

On August 2 of this year my husband, Randy, was admitted to the University of Texas Southwestern University Hospital with severe lung inflammation.  Too ill for a biopsy, no one really understood what was happening to him.  After several rounds of treatment with prednisone (the usual treatment for lung inflammation), the Lung Transplant Team approached us about testing him for inclusion on the Lung Transplant list.  Double Lung Transplant.  Those are extremely frightening words….. end of the line words.  A lung transplant, is of course, for individuals with such severe lung disease that no other medical intervention is possible.  Testing began.

In order to be put on the Transplant List, one has to be at the correct weight, and have no other health issues.  They do a thorough physical…CT scans, xrays, colonoscopy, EKGs, EEGs, you name it, they check it. After a week of these tests, and sitting on the edge of our seats, Randy was put on the lung transplant list. He was actually number 1.

Randy’s father flew in from Florida; my son, Wes, cut a vacation short and rushed to Dallas; our friends and family began to pour in to visit with him.  We thought he would get lungs within a week or two, but no appropriate lungs became available.

On August 29^th, Randy “crashed”.  His lungs failed.  The Transplant Team made a decision to put him on ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation), a machine which takes over for the lungs, oxygenating the body.  At the same time, Randy was put on a ventilator.  The purpose of ECMO and the ventilator was to act as “a bridge” to transplant.  What does that mean?  It means it is the last ditch effort to keep the patient alive until lungs become available.  Randy was kept in an unconscious state, on ECMO and the vent, for 12 days.

Those 12 days had to be the worst days in the lives of my children as they struggled to deal with a blow that few young adults face.  Every day on life support takes your loved one’s strength, and increases the odds of some kind of complication.  I lost my father when I was 25 to lung disease, and I lost my mother in June of this year of lung disease.  I felt as though I had gone into the Twilight Zone, or at the very least, an alternative universe.  Those poor transplant docs….they saw me every day, all day.  I kept the idea of Randy’s possible death as far from my mind as I could, and concentrated my mind and heart on “lungs for Randy, lungs for Randy, lungs for Randy”.  I made sure the transplant team thought about Randy constantly, because I was constantly in the ICU.

An incredible coming together of people from all walks of life began, and it happened mostly on the internet.  Say what you will about Facebook…it reaches a lot of people FAST.  My blog, www.travelswithtam.com/blog, also kept people up to date on what was happening.  People prayed, they sent healing thoughts, positive energy, and it was almost as if I could feel those energies around us.  A friend of ours even had Randy on the Dallas Cowboys prayer list!  Friends came and prayed with us and for us. Churches and Synagogues around the world put him on their prayer lists as word spread.  On day 12, at 11a.m., I was informed that there was a 50% chance Randy would be getting lungs that day.  The longest day of my life began.  At 6 a.m. on September 10, he was taken to the Operating Room to receive new lungs.  A miracle?  Oh yes, it definitely was a miracle.

Randy’s recovery is far from over, but he came home on October 30.  He has Pulmonary Therapy 3 times a week, sees the doctors of the Transplant Team at least once a week, and has other medical procedures as well.  Blood tests and xrays are done weekly, and there are other procedures, such as Bronchoscopy (where they go down with a tube and look at the lungs) on the schedule.  He is not walking on his own yet as his muscles completely atrophied, but he is home.  He is alive. He is breathing.

So this Thanks Giving is a very special one for our family and friends. We give thanks for Randy’s survival  I doubt that most people believed he would live, I know my children didn’t.  They truly believed they had lost their father, and they were heartbroken.  But he is here, with us, in our family home once again. The four of us are together.  We thank, from the bottom of our hearts, the donor and the donor’s family.  They will be spending these holidays without their loved one, but I hope they take comfort in knowing that he or she (we don’t know which) gave life to many others on September 10.  The same donor’s heart and liver were also used to save lives.  What a gift the donor’s life was!  What a person and family of generosity and compassion, and how grateful we are to them!

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So thank you.  Thank you to all those who prayed or sent one single wish Randy’s way.  Thank you for the meals, the treats, the visits, the flowers, the words, the phenomenal support we felt during that time of challenge.  Thank you to the power that saved Randy’s life.  Was it God?  Was it love?  Whatever belief system was called upon, I think the collective power of so much energy and love created a miracle.

Thanks Giving will be a day of celebration of life and giving this year, and for every year to come.  Happy Thanks Giving, from our house to yours.