Day 2 - My first trip to Shands Transplant Center
What an amazing place. I have never been to Shands Hospital before. It is a teaching hospital so there are Dr.'s and students EVERYWHERE. They are very friendly and super organized. What a difference from Tallahassee Regional just a few months ago with Daddy.
I was completely amazed by the transplant center. They transplant all the hard organs: Liver, Kidney, Pancreas, Heart and Lung. The first person we met with was the transplant coordinator. She went over all of our questions and told us what to expect. She looked very tired - she had coordinated 7 transplants in the past 5 days. All from deceased persons -- which means the minute that the person passes, the recipient of the organ has to rush to the hospital for immediate surgery. This lady coordinates all that. She said that many times it happens in the middle of the night, as it is from an accident. It is an amazing process.
Laurie will be admitted at 8:00 am tomorrow morning for more testing and blood work up. Mom had all of that today. She said that mom 's surgery will take 4-6 hours and Laurie's will only take 3 hours. The hardest part for them is to take the kidney out of mom and immediately put it in Laurie. They will "float" mom's kidney and lapascopically move the kidney down to close to her thigh. If all goes well with that then they will remove the kidney by a 6" incision in her lower abdomen.
We then met with the Chief Surgical Resident, Dr. McAuliffe (see picture above). She was very business like but friendly. She ran through the surgical part again with us and did a physical on mom (see picture above). Mom's surgeon (a female - I can't remember her name...) then came in to say hello and visit with mom and Laurie. They have already met with her and discussed things in a prior visit. She has a team of 5 doctors that includes a student that will be observing.
We then went to pre-surgery over at the hospital. We took a shuttle from the Transplant center to the hospital. We were getting off the shuttle and a little girl was there waiting for the shuttle. She was in a wheelchair and filled with tubes. She was probably 5 years old. They told me that I will see many children like her during my time here. I sure count my blessings and appreciate my healthy girls. I miss them already. When you walk into Shands there is an amazing "Wall of Healing" that has handpainted tiles from many patients, etc. (see picture above).
In pre-surgery they took loads of mom's blood and then we met with admissions and anesthesiology. They told Laurie that she will be awake until she enters the surgical room -- that made her a bit nervous. Mom will be knocked out thank goodness.
Things are getting more tense and they are getting nervous. God is good and he is faithful. Please pray for peace for them.
More tommorrow....
H
