Month: May 2019

Friday – 11:45am

Sally and Vince are both doing exceptionally well! They BOTH are going to move out of ICU today!

There are obviously many details that we’d love to share, but finding the way to connect the dots right now feels impossible. Sweet TJ stayed all night at the hospital with Sally and Mercedes stayed with Vince. Keith, Katie and I went out for pizza and a beer and immediately passed out cold.

But still, trying to condense the details of what we’ve been going through would be like trying to describe a battle blow by blow. Because in reality this was a battle.

But this one detail is worth sharing right now.

Dr. Hughes came by early this morning to check on Sally. He said again that this was absolutely the right time to do this surgery. The long and short of it is that a boat load of medical complications would have been right around the corner if Sally would have gone on living with her old liver. He showed her and TJ a picture of it. It wasn’t pretty.

He also told us this. When they hook a new liver up in these procedures they have to sew in and reconnect all the blood vessels and ducts that connect into our livers. In order to make these connections they have to use arteries from deceased donors.

Arteries from a, let’s say, run of the mill deceased donor are not always in the fridge. Sometimes the docs have to use arteries marked as “High Risk” because they’ve been taken out of vagrants, folks with HIV, hookers and tax collectors. When we were told of this option I asked Dr Hughes if he would use those on his own daughter and without missing a beat said, “Absolutely. One hundred percent.” We had no doubt he meant it. But high risk arteries aren’t always in the fridge either.

The worst case scenario is that they have to cut open a patients inner thigh and remove long sections of their own arteries.

Yesterday they were preparing to do this on Sally because the fridge was empty.

And then…

We don’t know who passed away, or why, or when. But we do know that right before the scalpel moved across Sally’s thigh a call came that a set of no-risk arteries was in the house, ready to be used. And they were immediately put to use in Sally.

Again, there’s a lot of details I’d like to go into here and now, but I simply can’t and hardly have the energy right now to do anything at all. I’m just sitting by my bride, who made it, listening to a little radio by her bed broadcast a rhythmic pulse that’s letting us know that the blood is pumping through her new liver perfectly.

But I do want to thank those of you who were on your knees yesterday, those who fasted, those who read scripture, those who wept, and those of you who wondered what all the God stuff is about but still took a crack at asking for a miracle, because all your prayers were heard.

And again, we don’t know why, and we don’t know where, and we don’t know who, but it’s not just Vince’s liver that Sally received but also some other persons arteries as well.

And there in lies the glory of our faith. The Lord’s plan for us is good and perfect. It’s just the bloody details of the battles that can get in the way of us seeing that sometimes.

5:59

I just spoke with Dr. Christopher Hughes who conducted Sally’s surgery today. He’s been working since 7:30 this morning. Her new liver is working perfectly. She’s being sewn up now and we will see her in about an hour and a half.

The best news (which I’ll never tire of hearing) is that he said that this was absolutely the right time to do this. Her right lobe of her liver had nearly entirely deteriorated and had subsequently grown in an odd direction. It was putting pressure on her entire system. It was absolutely the right time to do this.

Please continue to pray, and praise! I will update you all as soon as I see her sweet smile light up the ICU.