what a difference a year makes...

this time last year (exactly one year) i wrote this on my blog:

tuesday sucks

we got to the hospital around 11:30 this morning and mom told us. dads liver was in place and the blood was flowing through it, but it wasn't doing anything. they did a third biopsy and compared them and found that the liver was dying. so dad is back on the transplant list. this time right at the top, and this time for a 3 state radius. if a liver becomes available from 'pittsburgh to delaware' the doc said, dad gets first dibs. i assume that since they're putting him on this list that they think he can live through the surgery. but i think i have to confront the reality that he might die. if they don't get a liver soon enough, i don't know how long he will live, even being in the hospital and hooked up to a million machines, i'm not sure how much they can do. i know that life isn't fair. and our family has had a pretty blessed existence, but it just feels like it's not fair. my siblings are young, i'm only 26, i don't feel like i'm old enough to be losing a parent. i just want to scream and cry and kick the floor, a good old fashioned temper tantrum. there's nothing i can do but pray for strength and peace.

It's been a long road from that place. On November 14th Dad had his second liver transplant in 6 days. The difference between the two was like night and day. While we waited around for 5 days to see if the first liver would start to work, the second started to work before they had even closed him up. The second surgery only took 5 hours, the first took over 12. A year ago I was staying at my parents house, watching my brother, trying to keep his life as normal as possible while still shuttling in between state college and danville as much as possible to visit dad. It was hard, both timewise and emotionally. About three days after the first transplant he became pretty non responsive. He was battling an infection as well as trying to make the liver work. He was on dialysis because his kidneys were failing because the liver wouldn't work, and he had developed diabetes because the organs weren't functioning and his eyes were totally bloodshot, his arms bruised anytime anyone touched him. He was in bad shape. I don't know what life would be like today if he hadn't been given the second transplant. It's really to hard to think about. I know I would have moved on, but would I be here at seminary? or would I be at home with my mom and brother. I don't know. I'll never know, because we were blessed with the second liver. I haven't been able to think about the donor. I know he was only 23 and in good health. Some sort of accident had to have ended his life. I will be forever greatful for his donation. He saved my fathers life. I know even less about the first donor, but that person also saved dad's life. The first liver kept him alive until he received his second. The doctors told us the night of the first transplant that if they hadn't done the operation that dad wouldn't have lived through the weekend. His second transplant was on a Wednesday. Without the first, he wouldn't have made it to Wednesday. It's still hard to sit here a year later and look back on that time. The reality of life and death so present in my every day life. It's something that you have to face, but that isn't a daily reality for most of us.
I want to thank each and every one of you for your support, love, prayers, happy thoughts, rainbows, butterflies, cards, meals, phone calls, text messages and hugs. I could not live this life without each of you, and most certainly couldn't have made it through last year without you. I love you all!
rach