The call comes

Jamie got the call at home on Wednesday January 26th at about 3 in the afternoon.  What a shock. I had just got back from Jill's (my boss' office and was just getting ready to sit down when Jamie called.  She was pretty hysterical and said "Daddy you have to come home now, they have a liver for me. "  All at once I couldn't breath and just shouted out "They got a liver for Jamie" .  I work in a cubical setting so it wasn't a secret on my floor at work.  I called my mom immediately, lucky that mom didn't have her phone turned off, and said "mom, get down to the house right now, they have a liver for Jamie'"  I couldn't have Jamie alone in the house, since it was going to take 20 minutes to get home.   I walked out of my cube and it was that "freeze moment" when my mind was just trying to actually figure out what to do, I just kept thinking deep breaths deep breaths. Lori my friend and co-worker walked into the pod where I was standing, and offered to drive me home. She could see the panic in my eyes, and I'm so thankful she did. Dawn another co-worker volunteered to follow Lori in my car, so Lori could get a ride back to work.  Lori drove like a trooper, between trying to watch traffic, keeping my calm, and the haze of cigarette smoke, because I was lighting them up one after the other all the way.    I'm sure I would have been running red lights, or turned on the emergency flashers and honked like crazy.  On the drive home, I managed to get a phone call to Jeff, and tell him to get home now, that we had the call, and then I called my friend and boss Jill.  I ran out so fast, that I didn't even stop by to tell her, as she works in another portion of the building and it was not within a direct line to my car.   Jill knew by the time I had called her.  My cube neighbor Erica, (as told to me by Jill a few days later), had walked over to Jill's office and said, "Tim's gone, they have a liver, and Lori drove him home and Dawn followed."  Jill then said Erica started to cry.  When Jill told me this I teared up as well, so touched by how Erica handled the situation.  Working in cubes there isn't much privacy, so Erica, knew all the history of this.  I just didn't expect to hear that Erica started to cry.  I don't know what I thought would happen.


--Tim

Dad's beginning too!

Welcome to Jamie and Tim's blog.  No I didn't set this up.  Jamie did, because I'm too old to understand.  At this point in my life, everytime new information enters my mind, other information has to leave.  Like the old Mad Max thunderdome movie, "two man enter, one man leave"  That's how my thougths work these days.

Brief History for those of you who don't know.
Jamie was diagnosed at 10 years with a auto immune liver disease.  Essentialy her immune system decided the liver it shared a body with, wasn't good enough so it decided to attack it.  We were lucky that we found a specialist, Dr. Barclay that figured it out within a couple of months.  I've read online that some people's cases took over a year to figure out.   But even at that point the damage was done, a lot of scaring on the liver. 

The family was told, it could go 3 ways, maintain, grow out of it, or transplant.  So as most of you, we are on the 3rd option 14 years, many hospital visits, countless tests, and many sleepless nights later.


--Tim

Welcome

This is a blog that is being put together about the process of going through my liver transplant experience, both before and after.  From my point of view and my fathers.  Hopefully, this can open your eyes to the wonderful opportunity of seeing how important organ donation can be.  So, I encourage you to keep reading as we post more.

Thank you.
Jamie