HAPPENINGS

Well, it seems 10 am is the magic hour around here.  Not that we haven't been busy ALL NIGHT LONG.  That's when Dr. Smallfield (our new "man in charge") and physical therapy and the nurses all seem to converge on Tom's room for something or another.  The doc asked if the "Transplant Team" had been in to talk to us yet so we're not going anywhere until we see them - I suppose we could be waiting a while.  He said Tom would have "testing and evaluations all week".  We have no fixed plans on anything so we're just trying to go with the flow.

Tom has been up to sit in the recliner for an hour this morning.  He is supposed to do that 2 - 3 times a day.  It is work to get him there right now but he's made a lot of progress since yesterday.

We had a visit from a pharmacist today to go over the medications for post-transplant.  He mentioned meds that Tom would take for the rest of his life, how important they are and that they can be very expensive.  There are 3-25 meds he could be taking!  We took the opportunity to grill him on any info he could possibly provide.  We primarily asked for time frames.  He said the testing is normally about 7 days (he had seen it as few as 3).  Then you just wait on the liver.  He said that after the surgery, the patient is usually in the hospital 2-3 weeks followed by 2-3 weeks in the "townhome" on campus with outpatient visits.

He also said that patients usually do better if they "crash and burn", get a transplant and then recover as opposed to slowly going downhill over a period of years and then getting the transplant.  We are in the "crash and burn" category and they are busting it to get Tom ready for surgery.  He also said its almost better for the family too because things just move and there is not a lot of waiting.  The surgery itself lasts 6-8 hours!

We're lining up our support teams so Cathy and I can go work a few days in the next couple of weeks.  Of course, not knowing when all this will happen makes that really hard.  Cathy and I are both so blessed to have wonderful co-workers holding down the fort for us.  I think we will be able to prove to the team that Tom has great support but it will help for him to have someone with him at all times.  It helps him feel better too.

Cathy has been staying in the attached Marriott Courtyard.  She has offered to let me go over and take a shower so I'm really looking forward to doing that sometime today.  But not until we wait out the Transplant Team!