The phone rang yesterday afternoon as Fred and I sat down to watch an episode of Lost. I could hear the calm voice of his nurse making small talk and I went back to watching TV. She sounded far too calm for this to be THE CALL. After a few minutes, she revealed that they may have a donor and we should stay close to the phone. The blood type was a match, but they needed to run more tests to be sure. She told us to be ready to come in later that night, likely around 11pm. I checked my watch. Nine hours to kill. Fred hung up the phone and we both burst into tears. Though our wait has been relatively short, it has seemed as though the surgery would never actually take place. We collected ourselves and started to clean up the apartment- the one thing we were capable of doing. We began to make calls- he called his mom as I called his dad. Then his sister, brother-in-law, and my dad. I emailed Thelma. We braved the wind and rain to stock up at the pharmacy down the street, and returned home to pack Fred's hospital bag.
Claire, Matt, Christine, Michael and his mom turned up at dinner time to hang out while we anxiously waited for the call. At 9pm, the phone rang and we frantically rushed out the door, arriving at the hospital a few minutes later. Again, they told us nothing was for sure. We still had to wait to be sure the organs were good. At 11am, fourteen hours and countless tests later, Fred went into the operating room. Matt, Claire, Christine, Michael, Fred's mom, dad, sister and myself had spent the entire night at the hospital- eagerly awaiting the verdict. At 7:30pm, they rolled him out of the operating room to the ICU. We were told that the surgeon would soon be by to brief us on the operation. We waited forty minutes, but no one came. I snuck through the steel doors leading to surgical ICU and crept carefully to Fred's room- expecting someone to pounce on me for entering. No one said anything- so I stood and waited at the door to Fred's private room- I could hear his nurse talking to him, and Fred was responding in garbled words. We all took turns poking our heads in to say hi and the nurse told us the surgery went well. At 10:30pm, we decided to let him (and us) get some sleep.
The morning after. Surprisingly this is not the worst Fred has looked in the morning.
I dragged myself from the comfort of my uncomfortable mattress the next morning, showered and prepared to return to the hospital. Just as I was walking out the door, my phone rang and Fred's voice demanded to know where I was. I anxiously ran out the door- every minute of the half hour trek seeming like days. I was excited that Fred was already capable of bitching at me. On arriving at the hospital, we were briefed on his condition. His brand new kidney had already started working, as had his pancreas. He was in alot of pain, but was alert and quickly recovering. We discovered that his surgeon had been the only one in the hospital the night before and was responsible for the transplants of a few different patients that night. Good for us since he happened to be the only surgeon specialising in pancreas transplants in Eastern Canada... not so good for the guy that got the liver that night. We soon found out that Fred had been passed over several times in his wait for new organs. His doctor was determined to find the closest possible match for him- in age and tissue. As a result, the match on his new kidney/pancreas is very close to perfect.
We have been so lucky it's unbelievable. For so long, both of us have wondered when our luck was going to turn around and it seems as though it finally has (as I knock furiously on wood). Fred is doing extremely well. The efficiency of the kidneys is measured by the level of creatonin found in the blood- the higher the level, the less effective the kidneys. Before the surgery, his creatonin was over 400- this afternoon it was 98 (better than average). After the surgery, he was receiving 35 units of insulin an hour to keep his blood sugar regulated. This afternoon he was down to half a unit per hour. I can't explain, can't put into words how overwhelming the last week has been. Anxiety, fear, guilt, joy and hope have all been around this week. While Fred, his family and his friends anxiously waited for the confirmation that the surgery would happen, we were informed that the family of the donor were still in the hospital. The donor was young, close to our age and I imagined how their family must be feeling. We'll never know who that person was, or anything about them. It is absolutely unbelievable that a complete stranger saved his life- and we'll never be able to explain to them how thankful we are.
I hope that all of you have signed your donor cards and will allow your final good deed to be the longest lasting, most heroic and powerful thing that you've ever done. We have the rest of our lives to be thankful for the donor that allowed Fred and I to build our lives together.
Two days later. Green means morphine.
Thank you, Mr or Ms Mysterious for saving my Freddy.
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