TRANSPLANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yippee! Shout it from the rooftops! Dan has a new liver!

Monday, August 25
7:45am....I am still sleeping and Dan is reading when we get the call to be at the hospital within the hour, that a liver has been found.

7:47am...I am jumping up and down like a kid on Christmas morning, running out to the kitchen to tell Dan's parents, then we race to get ready and head for Mayo.

8:30am...We get to Mayo to register and begin the wait. For the next 9 hours, Dan gets checked into a room, has lots of labs and a chest xray, has to take a shower with this brownish betadine soap, and we wait. The surgeon met with us and explained the donor was in Tucson, a few hours south of Phoenix, and was 19 years old. When someone is an organ donor, after they are declared brain dead, their body is kept "functioning" by machines to keep the organs ready for transplanting. Our surgeons then flew to Tucson to "harvest" the liver and then flew back to Mayo, dodging a big monsoon storm on the way.

6:00pm...The surgeon arrives in the room, said the liver was a perfect match and healthy to give to Dan. Dan's parents and Dan's sister Debbie were there with me, and we all took a turn to say aloha to Dan, tearfully hoping he would make it through surgery. Throughout that long day, Dan was so peaceful and encouraging us, always asking for each hospital worker's first name so he could talk to them and thank them, even the young orderly that pushed him in the wheel chair. Dan's blood pressure and heart rate were normal, even lower - I was glad they didn't check mine! And in typical Dan fashion, on the operating table and before they put him out, he asked the team to gather around the table and he prayed for them.

Not sure of the exact times of the rest of the evening. The nurses came to the waiting room to give us progress reports, this was so appreciated, it made the wait shorter also. As we were freezing in the waiting room, we were blessed with a visit from Pastor Berry and his wife Nancy and Worship Leader Pastor Keith and his wife Kathy from First Southern Scottsdale, their warm fellowship came at just the right time.

Somewhere after 10pm...the surgeon comes out with the great news that the surgery was a success. The time was shorter than expected (3 hours instead of 4+ hours) and they only had to give him 2 units of blood instead of the expected 8-10 units.

Somewhere around 12midnight...we get to see Dan in CCU. I've never seen so many IVs, hoses, drains, airway, feeding tubes, you name it. Just a quick visit this time to see he was ok.

Tuesday and Wednesday...


Everything's kind of a blur, praise God for caffeine. The doctors are pleased with Dan's progress, his labs look good, the CT scan of the new liver looked normal. Because the new liver shocks the other organs with the fresh new flow of blood throughout the body, he will be diabetic for a while so he will be on insulin hopefully just a short while. And they started the anti-rejection meds. We learned that most transplant patients have at least one mild episode of rejection so if this happens they just change his anti-rejection meds to correct it. It's possible for him to have liver failure, but since the organ is young and healthy, I choose to believe this will not happen. They are also giving him some diuretics to help his kidneys get over the shock to them as well. It's amazing how all our body parts and organs work together and how a problem with one will affect all the others. Guess that's why Paul uses the body as a picture of the church in 1st Corinthians 12:12-31. And I am reminded from Psalm 139:14 that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" - I got the part of being wonderfully made, now I get the part about being fearfully made.

I'll post some more in the next day or so. We are so grateful for everyone's prayers, they are what keeps us going.

Soaring,


Debbie and Dan