Remembering Another January 12th

Have you ever found yourself on the anniversary of an important occassion in your life and remembered it even more clearly because the weather was just like it was that day?  That's the kind of day I'm having now.  Yesterday, it was a sunny, un-winterlike day, about 70 degrees.  Today, it's cold, dreary, and rainy, just like it was in 1998.  Join me in my little time capsule taken from my book.

It was a cold, dreary, rainy day that January 12.  My parents drove over, picked me up, and off we went to Oklahoma City.  The giant complex of medical buildings loomed ahead of us when we got there.  We parked and found our way through the maze of corridors to the transplant surgeon’s office.

The waiting room was large and crowded. 

Have all these people had transplants?  Are some of them waiting for that important call, just like I am?

I fought the urge to ask each one of them what their story was.  Time dragged slowly until my name was called and a nurse led me to an examining room.  What would this surgeon be like?  I hoped he liked me.  I hoped I would like him. 

Then Dr. Squires entered the room.  He had short, dark hair, wore the usual white physician’s coat, and stood a few inches shorter than myself.  And I’m 5 feet 9 inches in boots.  I don’t want to sound superficial, but it made him seem less threatening and intimidating than some doctors.  It took only a few minutes for me to realize there had never been any reason to be intimidated.  This was the most pleasant, humble doctor I’d ever met.  Weren’t surgeons supposed to be conceited and think they were God?  That was the reputation they had.

“The surgery will take about seven hours,” he told me.  This came as no surprise.   “The pancreas will go in your lower abdomen on the left side.  The kidney will be on the lower right side.  When it’s just a kidney transplant, it goes on the left.”

He explained more of the details to me.  I sat there, in awe of how far medicine had advanced since 1977, when I was diagnosed with diabetes.  What he was describing to me was a miracle.  And the best part of it all was that he never said, “This is what we would do if you were a candidate for this surgery.  But you’re not.  Sorry.”

He continued with details of the surgery. “I’ll perform the pancreas transplant.  Dr. Pennington will do the kidney.  We’re easy to tell apart.  He’s much taller than I am.”  He smiled.  Not only was he easy to talk to, he could laugh about his height – or lack thereof. 

How could anyone not like this guy?

It came as a relief to learn that most of the tests I had undergone to be listed for the kidney at Hillcrest could be used for this surgery.  I wouldn’t have to repeat them.

After the meeting, I practically ran to the waiting room to tell my parents all that I had learned.  We walked to the elevator and I repeated it all, word for word when I could remember it, as breathless and excited as a kid.  They both grinned.  It had been a very long time since I’d seen them smile like that.  We stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Edmond on the way back to Tulsa, where I ate fried shrimp, wondering how long it would be until I could walk into a restaurant and order dessert.  Dr. Squires said I could expect a wait of six months to a year.  This didn’t seem terribly long.  I had already been on dialysis a little over nine months.  He told me that being listed for two organs would mean that I racked up points on the waiting list twice as fast as when I was listed for one.

The rest of the way home, I peered out the window into the soggy landscape, trying to see the future in it as if it were a crystal ball.  It was still a big mystery, but now it was much less frightening.  It may have been a cold, grey day outside.  But, inside, I was all warmth and sunshine.  I had just received the best news of my life.     

Read more excerpts from What Didn't Kill Me Made Me Stronger: How I Found Hope While Surviving Diabetes, Vision Loss, and Organ Transplant at Jim's site JimFairbanks.nethttp://www.jimfairbanks.net/id30.html

My L.A. Odyssey Part 7: Diagnosis and Time Warp

Friday, my parents and I get up before dawn and drive to Oklahoma City.  For the first time ever, I hope I’m having a rejection episode.  If that’s the case, I’ll be put in the hospital and given strong anti-rejection drugs that virtually take my immunity to zero.  But, my pancreas may start working again.  If it’s not rejection, it means the pancreas is just worn out.

We're at OU Med Center, where it all began in 1998 with a new kidney and pancreas.  I want to go back in time to when I was full of optimism, full of excitement and wonder about what my body was about to experience.

My battered veins don’t want to cooperate and it takes several tries before they can draw blood.  The result: it’s not rejection.  Aside from high blood sugar, all the other numbers are normal.  I'm diabetic again. 

Then I get more bad news.  I have t be cancer-free 2-5 years before I can list for another one.  That means I’m looking at another year or more before I can be put on the waiting list.  I will have to wait before I can wait.

Now I have my answer.  It’s a long, quiet drive back to my parents’ house.  Everyone is very tired.

That evening I was feeling restless and sat on the covered patio behind my parents’ house.  In the distance I heard cheering every few seconds and remembered Greenwood High School was holding graduation at the football field not far away.  I walked to the front and stood on the driveway, caught up in the swirling memories of the past couple of weeks and a graduation ceremony on that same football gield thirty years ago.  How can it be thirty years already?  But the past week made me feel every minute my age and then some.  The images of my high school graduation flicker by me, but none take form.

I’m a middle-aged man standing on a driveway listening to a man’s voice on a loudspeaker.  I can’t make out what he says but I can tell he’s reading names.  Applause and cheers follow each one.  A few lots behind me, little kids play in a yard.  They’re really little—much too young to imagine high school, much less have trouble remembering it. 

The hot breeze whips around my face and I am in a time warp.  In only a few days I’ve been drawn backwards from racing toward my future at an amazing conference in fast-paced L.A. to high school graduation in 1982.  I’ve just been diagnosed with diabetes again, like when I was twelve.  Except I’m not back there.  These are just pale watercolor shades of the past being brushed onto the modern version of me.

The task ahead of me is to blend the new ambitions, plans for the future, and a newfound self-confidence and identity with a disease I had through my teens, twenties, and early thirties—a disease that damaged me, a disease that I hated and felt I had conquered 14 years ago when I got the new pancreas.  It will be a struggle to keep from being sucked into the diabetc time machine pulling me back there.

My Last Diabetic Day: A Tribute to My Donor

     It was thirteen years ago today when I got the call that changed my life forever.  A kidney and pancreas had been found for me.  Overnight I went from being a diabetic doing dialysis to being free from that life.  It’s a bittersweet day for me, because I know someone lost someone they loved that day.  It’s ironic how carefree that day was for me.  It was one of the few days I didn’t wonder if “The Call” would come that day.  It must have been a very different day for his family.

     This is an excerpt from my memoir, which I hope to have published.

Sunday, April 5^th.  Everyone had set their clocks forward the night before.  Since becoming visually impaired, the switch to Daylight Savings Time each spring has been one my favorite days of the year.  It meant an extra hour of light each evening.  That translated into ease of mobility, either by driving or walking. 

     My day started an hour later than usual.  It would take me a few days to get accustomed to the time change.  Not that it really mattered.  I was no longer working and by then, I usually slept almost twelve hours a day.

     It was a beautiful spring day.  The sun was shining, the wind wasn’t blowing too much, and it was warm.  After I got my morning exchange done, I went for a walk.

     An old railroad had been converted into a trail for walking, jogging, or biking.  It ran roughly parallel to

Riverside Drive

, except it weaved between homes, back yards and businesses.  It was more secluded than the path in the long narrow park on the riverbank, so it wasn’t used by as many people.

     My energy level was good and I was in the mood to explore.  Much of the trail was shaded.  I was surprised at just how close it came to the backs of some of the houses and I wondered how long it had been since it had been an actual, functioning railroad.

     It was nice to walk for pleasure, without needing to be somewhere by a certain time.  It was one of those rare times when I didn’t have a bus to catch.  There were no groceries to carry and there was plenty of daylight—an extra hour of it—left in the day.  There was no need to hurry.  This was a good thing, because I hate feeling rushed.  Besides, Sundays like that are too perfect to rush through.

     I must have walked a couple of miles, though it was hard to be sure because of the way the trail curved.  There were no street signs to identify which block I was on.  This was a rare moment for me, especially since my kidneys had failed.  To be at peace and content—“in the moment,” as they say—was a luxury.

     When I reached a point where I had used about half of my energy, I turned around and headed north, back home.  I remembered that there was a small diner near 21^st and Riverside and decided a hamburger would be good for lunch.  It was starting to get pretty hot out as I approached the building.  A cool drink would really hit the spot.

     It was locked.  That didn’t make sense, so I checked the sign for the hours of business.  They closed on Sundays at 2:00.

     What time IS it anyway?  Did I lose track of time?

     Usually, I am a very good judge of time, so it surprised me that I was off the mark by so much.  Then I remembered the time change.  It was later in the day than I thought it was.  I was only five or six blocks from home, so I headed there, with that eerie, slightly off-center feeling you get when time has tricked you.

     After I ate a small lunch (my appetite had dwindled over the past several months) and did another exchange, I took out the trash and spent a couple of hours painting in ink.  It was still mostly experimental, but now and then I managed to impress myself with the results.  I had just cleaned up after my painting when the phone rang.

     “James, this is Tawanna, we need you to get here as fast as you can make it.  We’ve found a donor.”

     Let me try as best I can to describe how I felt.  You’ll have to forgive me if it sounds cliché at times.

     Yes, my hands trembled, and yes, my heart skipped a beat—maybe two.

     Tawana, the transplant coordinator, continued, “Do an exchange and bring a bag of solution with you to do one here.”

     “OK,” I said, trying to stay calm.  This was important information.  I needed to pay attention.

     “Don’t eat anything before you get here.  What time did you eat last?”

     I told her when it was, what it was, and how much it was.  She might have asked what my last blood sugar test was—or maybe not.  It’s been several years and with each passing second, my excitement increased.

     As soon as she hung up, I called my parents.

     Oh, God, please let them be home.

     My mother answered the phone. 

     She already sounds tense.  Is everything OK there?

     “Mom, they found organs for me,” I said, so full of excitement, I could hardly contain myself.

     “I know, honey, she called here a few minutes ago.”

     What?  Why would she call there first?

     “She wanted to make sure your number hadn’t changed.  When she called you the first time, some girl answered the phone and didn’t know who you were.  I told her you live alone.  I guess she dialed wrong the first time.”

     So, if Mom and Dad hadn’t been home, I would have missed out on this. 

     “We’re getting ready as fast as we can,” Mom continued “It might be close to 9:00 when we get there.”

     “OK”

     They lived two hours away from Tulsa.  Still, I rushed around my apartment, trying to think of what I would need for a ten-day hospital stay. 

     Take shorts with an elastic waist.  My belly will be tender. And loose-fitting clothes, magnifying glass, and socks.  Clean underwear, that dialysis bag, sunglasses.  What else?

     An old episode of I Love Lucy flickered across my mind.  It was the one when a very pregnant Lucy enters the room and announces, “It’s time.”  Ricky, Fred, and Ethel panic and run around the room, trying to pack a suitcase and spilling it onto the floor.  In their haste, they run out and leave Lucy standing there.  I smiled, slowed down, and hoped my parents were a little more composed than that back in Greenwood at that moment.

     There were phone calls I needed to make.  One by one, I called my friends in Arkansas to share the good news.  My voice quavered and tears of joy ran down my face as I thanked them for all of their support.  This needed to be said, because what if I didn’t make it?    What if something went horribly wrong and I never had the chance to thank them?

     No, just don’t go there.  It’s going to be fine.  No dark thoughts now. 

     Sometimes I only reached answering machines.  I left frantic, overjoyed messages, trying to say all I needed to say as fast as I could.  I didn’t want to be cut off by a beep.

     Never before had my body sustained such an adrenaline rush for such a long period of time.  I tried to calm down.  I took deep breaths, exhaling slowly.

     After everything was packed, I did another exchange.

     Soon—very soon—I’ll never have to do this again.

     In my desk, I kept a temporary hold card for the post office, waiting for just this occasion.  It was all filled out except for the dates, which I filled in with orders to hold my mail until further notice.  Carefully, I clipped it to my mailbox by the door, proud of myself for having the forethought to take care of this detail in anticipation of The Big Day.  This day. 

     I hope I’m not forgetting anything.  Calm down and think.

     Milk and leftovers in the refrigerator went down the kitchen sink.  There were no perishables left in my kitchen to spoil while I was gone.

     Then, I waited, trying not to worry.  I listened to soothing music, and I thanked God.

     My parents knocked at the door.  I opened it and gave Mom a big hug.  We quickly gathered my things and hurried to their car, parked in the closest parking space they could find in the tiny lot.  A guy stepping out of a van said, “Hey, that’s for tenants only.”

     “He’s about to get a transplant,” Dad said “We need to hurry,” 

     An argument with this jerk wasn’t going to ruin this moment for me, so I said nothing.  He did, however, receive my frostiest “go to hell” glare.

     We were on our way.  It was dark.  In a rush and nervous, Dad made a wrong turn and we found ourselves in downtown Sapulpa, a suburb just west of the Arkansas River from where I lived.  Momentary panic set in.  I had never been to downtown Sapulpa, but this wasn’t the time to check it out.

     It didn’t take long for us to get our bearings and we sped along Interstate 44 to Oklahoma City.

     Just relax.  It’s in God’s hands now.  It’s your turn now. Your patience is about to be rewarded.

     From where I sat in the back seat, the dark landscape passed in a blur.  I tried to imagine what would happen to me in the next few days.  So much of it was a blank.  I had asked all the questions I could think of over the preceding months, but now it didn’t seem like enough.

     The car sped southwest under the dark, wide Oklahoma sky.  I hoped we wouldn’t get pulled over by a state trooper, delaying my big appointment with Fate.  I listened to more soothing music on my Walkman and closed my eyes.

     We reached the outskirts of Oklahoma City.  Dad found the exit we needed without any trouble and we found the streets quiet, late on a Sunday night.  A few of the houses we passed still had lights on and I thought of the occupants inside, having a typical Sunday night before starting a new work week, oblivious to this anything-but-typical day in my life.

     Dad found a space in the parking deck and we hurried through a door.  Only a few steps inside was an elevator, which we took to another floor, where the Admitting office was located.  With only a few minutes to spare until that office closed, we rushed through the halls.  If they closed before we arrived, I would have to be admitted through the emergency room, an extra step we didn’t really want to bother with.

      The three of us charged into the large waiting area in Admitting to find it deserted except for a woman behind a desk.  It was late.  She looked tired and would be getting off work in a few minutes.  Our excitement was contagious, which seemed to re-energize her.  It probably wasn’t every day a patient on the verge of receiving an organ transplant sat across the desk from her.  When we told her why I was there, she seemed genuinely happy for me.

     Moments later, I was in an examining room, wearing a hospital gown.  A doctor examined me before two nurses went to work prepping me for surgery. 

     I had been told to bring a bag of dialysis solution and supplies to do an exchange.  Actually, it was only to drain the fluid from my peritoneum from the last exchange I did at home.  This would be the last time I would do this procedure, something that had become as commonplace as brushing my teeth.  I made sure every drop drained out of me.  Never again would I feel that odd sensation of fluid being drained out of my belly through a plastic cord.  And I would be through with two shots a day, too.

     Soon, my abdomen would feel pain and tenderness and God only knew what other types of unfamiliar sensations.

For several years after the transplant, I thought of my donor every time I ate something sweet.  After being diabetic 21 years I had accepted the fact that I would live with it for the rest of my life.  Now, I don’t always think of my donor or the transplant when I eat sweets.  It’s one of the few ways my life has become more “normal” over the years.  But, today and tomorrow are sacred days for me.  I’ll never forget what my family, friends, and the donor all did for me.  I’ll never forget that I am a survivor.