Recap

Alright here goes...

Tuesday was pretty much an ordinary day for me and Ron. We got up, he went to work and I did my usual housework and Abby duties. Ron came home from work exhausted which seemed to be happening more and more in the last few months. His long days were beginning to take more of a toll on him every week, with that we were both seeing some more of the "future" symptoms of the cirrhotic liver. He went to bed very early, around 9pm, because he was so tired. Which turned out to be great for him in the up coming wee morning hours. I stayed up much later and finally crawled into bed around midnight and Abby was an unusual high demanding dog that night. She got me up multiple times to let her out for potty-time. I ended up finally getting to bed around 2am... At about 4:45 Ron's phone began to ring. By the time he realized what was going on the call ended. He noticed it was a (415) area code which to us means one thing.. California Pacific Medical Center. So he immediately tried to call back but the line was busy. At that moment he saw his work phone light up. He answered it and so began our adventure.

I watched him and did my very best to eavesdrop on the call. I could make out that they had a liver and it was match for him. The offer came to us, the liver was from young donor and in good condition. After he accepted the offer they came back to us with a condition... we had to wait while they attempt to contact another possible recipient to see who was higher on the list. I immediately got up, through some things of ours in a bag and jumped in the shower... miss optimistic huh? Ron remained in bed staring at both his phones, that he held one in each hand in each hand. When I got out of the shower he was in the same position... staring. It took about 20 minutes before they called back.. I don't think he blinked once during the wait. When they called back they told him it has been released to him and asked again if he wanted it... we said hell yes we want it! Ron got up threw on some clothes and within 5 minutes we were out the door. In our rushed excitement I forgot the bag a packed with our clothes/ect, duh.


Ron started the drive from the house and by the time we hit Atascadero, I made him pull over because he was driving to slow... lol. I told him "I am driving and if we get pulled over I'll take the ticket." I made up some time but we still hit traffic in San Jose and on, but we made it to the hospital in about 4hours, maybe 4.5, I lost track in my singlemindness of GET TO THE HOSPITAL. I drooped him off in the front of the hospital and drove around to park.

By the time I got to the lobby he had already been admitted and I went on, what some might call, a wild goose chase to find where they took him. When I finally made it back to him, they had him in a gown and were asking the usual round of questions. We ended up having to wait quite a while longer because the surgeons needed to finished a surgery before him. Once they got him ready they took both of us the the operation floor dressed us up in sterile wear and told us about all the horrific things that they don't think will happen during surgery.

I can safely say that it scared the shit out of both me and Ron. I had to leave tearful eyed and full of a swirling emotion hurricane of fear, hope, joy and loneliness. About 10 hours of waiting in the lobby, the surgeon came out to tell me the surgery went well (some minor details of the operation) and someone would come get me once they have him setup in the ICU. I waited about 15 more minutes until I escorted MYSELF up to the ICU floor. And paced about 15 more minutes before I picked up the phone that connected you to the nurses station. They buzzed me in and I sat with him for a couple more hours. He was sedated and had tubes everywhere, but the tubes weren't the worst of it. To simply state it, Ron doesn't do well under sedation. I don't know how else to describe it other than... he fights. He struggled in his sleep trying to pull out the ventilator and the central lines they had in major arteries in his neck and legs they ended up strapping him down so he couldn't tear them out.

The doctors and nurses had to devise a way to bring him out of sedation without harming him or themselves. They decided that they would remove the respirator and major artery catheter in his leg. They usually don't like to remove these things while the patient is under sedation because it is safer to do it while they are aware of what is happening. Unfortunately, that was not an option in his case. (Fast-forward to a few days later, Ron was complaining that the muscles in his right arm was very sore, later i realized it was because he was struggling against the restraints all night and day) Once they removed everything but the drainage tube from his abdomen and the central-line in his neck they began to slow the drip until he was awake. P.S. I have a great photo of the catheter they took out of his neck... it was huge.

That gets you up to date for the first three days. Whoa...