It's Time

After waiting only 11 days on the transplant list Maddy got a call this morning at 10am saying they had a prospective donor and she needed to come right into the hospital. She called me, just as I was starting a day of meetings for work, and I thought she was teasing me. Nope, she was serious! I let everyone know and booked on out of there.

Maddy and I got her O2 together and headed down to TGH trying not to get our hopes too high. We kept saying ‘if it’s not a false alarm this is going to be cool’. We made it to the hospital by 11:30 or so and they had us up in the pre-op area by noon. From there things went rather slowly. They started her IV line and accessed her port, took lots of blood and urine and basically went about getting her ready for the surgery. They told us about another young lady with CF who got her lungs yesterday. She was already sitting up and eating by the time Dr. Rolf told Maddy about her. He said the other young lady was setting the bar high for Maddy and she said she was up to the challenge. Maddy also asked if she could get one of her lungs in a jar to take home with her. He laughed and said no but they could take a picture if we wanted to send a camera in with them. We had not even thought of that so we didn’t have anything to send.

I have been taking lots of pictures and I will continue through the recovery process. You can see them at http://maddyslungtransplant.tumblr.com

At around 12:45 Dr. Rolf told us that there was a doctor on the way to examine the lungs and we should know very soon. If they are good he said she could be going back as soon as 3:00. It took a little longer than that but we eventually got the call saying the lungs were good and she is going to the ER.

She went into surgery at 4:45. Now the other waiting happens. From here the surgery will take between 8 and 10 hours. She will go to ICU and they will keep her sedated until sometime tomorrow. We will not be allowed in until 24 hours later. Sometime tomorrow the doctors will wake her up and assess her breathing. She will still be on the ventilator while they check her lungs and make sure they wake up and have gotten used to their new home. Within about an hour from that time they will have her breathing on her on with only a little help from the ventilator. Then they will remove the tube and she will breathe on her own. This will all be within the timeframe that I am not allowed to be by her side! She will also have two chest tubes in each side, one large and one small, to drain the wound site. The two large tubes will come out within the first week and the two small ones will be in there until just before she gets out. She will be in ICU for about a week then they will move her to a regular room on the pulmonary floor. The usual recovery time is about three weeks. Because Maddy has acid reflux she will need to undergo another procedure that will keep her in an extra week.

I don’t know what else to post in this one. As I write this Maddy is still in surgery. Two and a half hours in she is stable and one lung has been removed. More to come...