When they told us an OR time (for my dry run) of 10PM, it was about 3pm or after. (I don’t remember exactly, maybe it was even after 5pm at this point because the day was a blur.)   I did a little walking around, said hello to the lung transplant doc on the floor.  After I took a few spins around the unit (I was a little tired)  I sat back in bed & decided to entertain myself while my bestie was over at one of the transplant houses checking in and unloading.

Seriously, lung patients do get a bit hobo-ish.  Especially on the weekend. I had my regular transplant/rehab bags packed since March, just so they wouldn’t be forgotten, but we had a boatload of oxygen,  the concentrator, tubing, & a few other things.

In the event of a dry run, we didn’t take any chances.  Especially on a holiday weekend.

I suppose it was around 6 or 6:30 my bestie texted me to tell me they were having pizza over at one of the transplant houses.

They had hooked me up to a magnesium drip since my levels were a little low.  Not near as appetizing as pizza.

She said she’d be back over about 7:30 or 8. I told her to take her time.  We knew nothing would happen before then.

I called some family & a few people just to let them know we didn’t know anything but things were still looking good.

I then tried to amuse myself.  Since the drip was a bit sensitive I opted not to walk around with it.

I turned on the TV & settled on the Kardashians (don’t judge). I just needed something mindless, (like white noise) & something ridiculous to take me out of the hospital.

After that, I put on Lawrence Welk on PBS. It brought back good memories of my grandfathers.  The music was soothing to me.  But I had to laugh. I joked, here I was spending what could be some of my last hours of life watching these programs…

7:30pm rolled around & I started feeling some nerves.

I was ok, but I knew some of it was because I hadn’t taken some of my regular medicines. I think most of the morning was finally hitting me.

About 9:40pm they came to take me down to a PACU unit. Kind of an OR holding/prep unit.  That staff was really cool.

They asked if there was any music I wanted played so I of course asked for Duke Ellington. They had some but a nice mix of jazz/swing music (on Pandora) to keep me calm.

Had two lovely young women nurses who were able to talk to us a lot. That helped us kill time while they were making a decision.

The coordinator on duty was awesome too, very sweet & attentive.

Then an assistant to the surgeon walked up & introduced himself. I could tell he was disappointed in having to tell me this was a “no-go” due to traces of pneumonia in one of the lungs.

I put my hand on his instinctively (which was on the rail of my bed) & told him it was ok.  We were told early on it might happen this way.  We told him we weren’t  disappointed, just grateful for the call today.  I told him to thank the surgeon for me.

It was close to 1am by the time I was discharged.

We both were exhausted but never felt like it was a wasted trip.  I felt encouraged I’m on the radar, & I had the rest of the holiday weekend to recoup & rest.

I wasn’t ready for that wave of exhaustion & fatigue that hit me after but I’m not sorry for it.

I am kind of glad that I didn’t have another call in the same weekend, but I’m hoping another opportunity comes soon.  But I can be patient…

It took 4 months for my phone to ring once.  Hopefully it won’t be that long before it rings again.

(Something tells me it won’t be.)