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To (and Roy!) 10/8/99 (Sorry - a day late)

From the archives of 1999

From: "Roy T" Date: Fri Oct 8, 1999 6:54 pmSubject: The Call - UpdateI'll have to apologize in advance for what is probably an incoherent messageto follow. I have been up for about 38 hours straight, and really tired. got called in last night about 8:30. I almost didn't answer the phonesince I was watching a football game and this was about the 15th call thathour, mostly from telemarketers. didn't get as upset this time as she did the last time she got called.No one likes getting false alarms but it is probably good phsycological prepfor real thing. Waiting several years also adds some perspective.Made it into the transplant center about 10:00. Various surgical prep workand organ retreival thoughout the night. Endless stream of people comingand going. I think they left to get the donor organ about 1:30 or 2:00 AMbut I forget exactly. Same surgeon did the retreival and the transplant.Donor organ looked good, rolled down to surgery at about 9:00 AM today. Gotvarious interim reports from the coordinator. I think the halftime scorewas 10 units of blood, never did hear the final total. Might have heardthis wrong, it sounds like a lot to me. Sould have brought a laptop, thewait was very tedious.Finished up about 4:00 PM. Surgeon says everything went OK. Old liver wasin very bad shape and atypical in some respects from other PSC livers. Iforget exactly what he said about this, other than it looked "inflamed" andhad some cysts. Surface looked like the moon. Or something like that. Hedid a "rou-en-y" (sorry I'm sure this is misspelled) which apparently isstandard with PSC patients since their old ducts are shot anyway. The don'twant her to eat for 3 days, I think.Took to ICU, seemed to be doing OK, not quite awake yet, still onventilator. They said her color looked good, liver was making bile, labslooked good. Gave her a gram of prednisone which I understand is typical.If anyone has taken Prednisone you can appreciate what I giant dose this is.No wonder some people hallucinate. Didn't count the tubes but thecoordinator said 20 and I took her word for it. Tubes stuck everywhere.Looked like the Borg or something (star trek).I went home. I couldn't even remember my beeper number to give it to theICU nurse, I was so tired. Will call back shortly to see how it's going.I'm sure there is more but that's all I can remember right now. Probably alot more bumps in the road ahead, but so far so good.Thanks for all who sent along messages and prayers.Thanks also to the donor (whoever you are) and the medical teams.Roy T.