I’ve been writing a lot about waiting. Waiting for phone calls. Getting that phone call. Well, I’ve been waiting for yet another important call. The one that tells me that I am actually, officially ON the Lung Transplant List. I thought it would come late this week, maybe even next week.
Well, today, Tuesday, June 10th at 12:58PM, THE call came. I am OFFICIALLY ON the Lung Transplant List! This has been a long, difficult, emotional and challenging journey to get to this point so when I got the news, I burst into tears! I am overjoyed to have this chance at the gift of life.
I have overcome so many obstacles to get to this point and I am proud of that! This hasn’t been easy and being turned down by the first Transplant Hospital made the journey even longer and more difficult.
Trying to live with the knowledge that if you don’t get a lung transplant that you are out of options. Let’s just say it - I would die - is very hard. There is no road map to tell you how to live with this information.
So you fight. You fight hard. I am blessed with a doctor who fought hard FOR me! He sent me to Mayo where I was actually diagnosed and told I needed a transplant. He’s the doctor that got on the phone and started calling the only two hospitals here in the Chicago area that do Lung Transplants. He never gave up fighting for me. Never. When the first hospital turned me down, he got feisty and started calling the other hospital and nagging them to take a look at me at least. I owe him everything.
Getting on the Transplant List was not an easy task. It was incredibly hard in fact. What I have had to go through - the testing - is demanding to say the least. SO many tests. But I complied and did whatever they asked of me. It wasn’t easy. But I did it. All the time, never knowing if I would be accepted.
I Blogged recently that the Call came that said they would accept me for a transplant but I still had more testing to do before they would actually put me on the list. So I went at it again. More tests, Faxing reports. Then wait - again - for that other call.
Today that Call came! I am officially on the waiting list! If I thought this has been a difficult journey, well now the hard part begins. Now we wait. I am told waiting for your organ can be the most difficult part of the journey. I have no idea how long I will have to wait. The truth is I may never get my new lungs. But I refuse to believe that! I believe I will get lungs. I pray it will be sooner rather than later.
The hard part now begins. Now we wait. But today I am on the list and for now my family is celebrating this chance at life I have been given!
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