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

Between One Transformative Year and the Next

The world didn’t end in 2012, but it left many of us in a different situation than when the year began.  That’s how it was for me, partly because I was determined to make it a differenty year, and partly due to some surprises.

 

To help make this a different year, I worked with a life coach who helped open my mind to new possibilities and eliminate stumbling blocks in my life.  Before long, I felt a shift in my thinking and how I saw myself.

In March I had my first taste of success as aninspirational speaker when I took Second Place at a regional Toastmasters International speech.  The award was nice, but the real payoff was having people tell me later how much my story had touched them.

A few months later I was asked to serve as president of the local Toastmasters slub.  At first I shied away from the idea, but saw how it could help me grow in several ways in addition to speaking.

In May I attended an intense traning for people aspiring to get high-paying public speaking engagements.  My mind lit up with all the information, ideas, and connections I made.  It was my first time in L.A. and I had some extra free time to see some of the place.  I loved it.  Watch out, Los Angeles, I'll be back one day.

But I had a big health flare-up midway through theconference.  I got so sick I had to be taken to the emergency room, where they discovered my blood sugar was through the roof.  I was admitted so they could run tests on my transplanted pancreas.   It looked fine, but I had several gall stones.  The pancreas had just worn out.  It was depressing to be hospitalized so far from home and learn that 14 years of non-diabetic freedom had ended.

I flew home, had my gall bladder removed, and tried to adjust to being diabetic again.  I’m getting better at it.  More about that in future posts.

In September I attended a book marketing seminar in Philadelphia but had time to do a little sightseeing too.

I attended the 30 year class reunions of both high schools i attended.  It was really tough changing schools halfway through 11^th grade.  Seeing both groups of classmates after all that time helped me put that part of my life in perspective.  Time and maturity helped, but doing that at this stage of the game caused me to edit my memoir and soften the tone in that section.  It also helped me rewrite history so that several people are better, more likeable people—including me.

My memoir!  Ifinally finished it!  I started writing it in 2006 and got sidetracked with some other writing projects and some health issues like cancer and whatnot.  Now it’s being formatted and will be published soon.  

That’s why I expect 2013 to be AT LEAST as transformative as 2012 was.  This will be the year my life story will be put on display for anyone to read.  It will be the year I do paid speaking engagements.  It will be the year I watch my web site WhatMaesUsStronger.com grow and possibly launch the line of books related to it.

I’ll be cancer-free two years in early 2013, which means I can get on the transplant waiting list for a new pancreas.

2013 is the year I expect to come into my own and live up to my full potential.

Why I Talk About It

This coming weekend, I’ll be competing in a speech competition.  I’ve given this particular speech twice already, with some refinement between the first and second time.  The topic: organ donation—from the viewpoint of someone who was lucky enough to receive one.

Actually, I received two.  Maybe I should have titled this post Why I Talk about Them.  But "it" is my personal experience of being a transplant recipient.

One of the main reasons I started writing my memoir was to raise awareness about diabetes, visual impairment, and organ donation in general and pancreas transplants in particular.  Most people still don’t know one can be transplanted.  Some of them are diabetics who could possibly benefit from one.

While reading a book about how to write a non-fiction book proposal for a publisher or agent, I ran across an interesting bit of advice for building a platform—that all-important built-in audience of potential buyers.  It suggested doing speaking engagements.  That made sense.  It went on to suggest joining Toastmasters to improve your speaking skills so you don’t fall flat on your face at those speaking engagements. 

An organization that could teach me how to be a more dynamic speaker?  That sounded like a good idea.  I joined and started getting comfortable talking about myself for a few minutes at a time in front of a room full of people.

It’s a surreal experience, standing up and speaking in front of a bunch of people with normal vision when you can’t see their faces clearly.  They say public speaking is one of the most common fears people have.  I don’t think they polled legally blind ex-diabetic organ recipient cancer survivors.  After all that, it doesn’t frighten me.  Few things do anymore.  But, like so many things I experience, it’s surreal. 

Fast forward a couple of years to last month, when I spoke about what it’s like to go from being diabetic and doing dialysis to suddenly being free from both.  Later, a few people commented that they were going to have the “talk” with their family to let them know they wanted to be a donor if something happened to them.

My first taste of success in this new realm. 

I had given other speeches about interesting or funny things I’ve experienced.  The one about being a legally blind substitute teacher got plenty of laughs.  The objective was vocal variety, which any substitute (or regular) teacher knows something about.

One speech objective was to use my body.  I talked about the day George H.W. Bush flew into our little airport in 1988 to campaign for president.  I worked at Drake Field at the time and ended up being the one to flag in the last plane before he landed—the one that would be parked closest to his.  It had to be just right.  Airport employees were allowed to be closer to where he was than the general public.  We also got to board Air Force II for a quick look while he was out campaigning.

Then I was ready for my speech about organ donation.  The objective was persuasion.  Not surprisingly, it’s a topic I feel very strongly about.  This was my chance to inspire and motivate.  It brought me full circle to when I first started writing my story.

It’s hard to describe the feeling of fulfilling your purpose in life.  It’s sort of a heady, tingly, warm sensation with a sense of powerful intuition—the kind you know in your gut.  It’s being swept up and carried aloft by it without having to struggle.

I already knew my story was meant to be told in writing.  Talking about it and putting some emotion in my words and voice is a different level of intensity.  This rounds out the picture.  It gives a face—a healthy one—to something still shrouded in mystery by most Americans. 

It will be a larger audience this weekend.  Some of them will be competing against me.  I’m going to do my best, but even if I don’t win the contest, I will have won anyway. 

PTA (Post-Transplant Anatomy)

There is some confusion, even among medical professionals not directly involved with transplant patients, about the number and location of a typical transplanted kidney.  Fewer are even aware a pancreas can be transplanted, let alone the specifics.  So, to clear up some of the myths and mystery involving my two “carry-on bags,” I’m going conduct my own Q & A session.  Don’t worry; there won’t be any diagrams, graphs, or gory photos.

Why didn’t you get two kidneys?  Because you can live with just one.  In fact, even if that one is only working at half capacity, you’ll still be OK.  It’s one of only a few body parts to have a spare.  In some cases, when the donor was elderly, both kidneys are given to the recipient, but that’s pretty rare.

And they took out one of your kidneys that didn’t work and replaced it with the new one, right?  Wrong.  The new one was placed in one side of my lower abdomen; the pancreas went on the other side.  Your kidney is only about the size of your fist.  Your pancreas is about the size and shape of a deck of cards.  That’s small compared to other internal organs.  There’s room for them in front.  And, no, there isn’t a lump in the skin above each one.  Surgeons leave the old, failed kidneys where they are (except for rare instances when they are causing pain or some other problem).  Eventually, they shrivel up like a prune and get smaller.  To get to them would mean cutting through several layers of back muscle, which is why donating a kidney can be harder for the donor than the lucky one who gets it.

So, you have three kidneys and two pancreases?  Yep.  I’m like those packages of chicken you find at the grocery store with six wings or four drumsticks.  That must have been one strange-looking bird.  From the outside, no one can tell my “innards” are out of the ordinary.

Why did you get a kidney and a pancreas at the same time?  The hospital had a “two for the price of one” sale.  Not really.  I just like to see how people react when I tell them that.  I was diabetic for 21 years.  That’s what caused the kidney failure.  With a new pancreas working properly and keeping my glucose normal, it helps ensure the new kidney will last longer.  There are still a number of things that can go wrong, but at least high blood sugar won’t be one of them.

Do you still have to take insulin shots?  No.  The new pancreas takes care of that.  I can eat as much of whatever I want and I don’t have to stick my fingers several times a day to test the blood sugar.  Life is sweeter when your blood isn’t too sweet.  But, in place of insulin, I take several pills a day to keep my body from rejecting the transplanted organs.  Until they figure out how to clone those two parts, I’ll always have to take the pills.

Did you pick up any of the habits, tastes, or personality traits of the donor?  That’s a good question.  The pancreas (and first transplanted kidney, which only lasted five years) came from a young man in his early 20s.  That’s about all I know about him.  One interesting change I noticed a few months later was that I liked heavy metal rock more than before.  Back in the 80s when it was popular, I could take or leave most of it.  Six months after the transplant, I was rocking out to Van Halen, Aerosmith, Nazareth, and a bunch of other “hair bands” with the volume turned up high.  I also started to have an interest in martial arts.  A year after the transplant, I was taking a non-contact kickboxing class.

One of the meds is prednisone, a steroid, which I took in high doses the first several months.  It makes people more aggressive.  So, my personality changed for a while, but (I guess) more or less returned to what it had been before.

I also found that I didn’t like Chinese food as much as before.  I mean I didn’t like as many different dishes of it.  The ones that I still like, I like very much.

My second transplanted kidney came from someone I know (though I didn’t know her when she offered to donate it—but that’s a topic for another post).  It’s nice having a living donor and being able to know more about them.  She’s a Gemini, same as me, and our personalities are similar.  She’s feisty, quick-witted, spontaneous, creative, and a big fan of change, often redecorating her home.  One thing is certain—this kidney is much healthier than the last one.  It has already lasted almost three years longer than the last one and with no problems at all.

Life must be easy now, isn’t it?  Well . . . it’s easier than being a diabetic on dialysis.  It’s easier than being a former diabetic on dialysis.  But I have to be careful to avoid sick people.  The anti-rejection drugs lower my immunity.  If I get sick, it takes my body longer to fight it off.  The prednisone has side effects, one of them being loss of bone calcium.  I take supplements after having had a broken right foot (once) and broken left foot (twice).

Any final remarks?  Yeah.  Be an organ donor.  All you have to do is sign the back of your driver’s license (or state-issued ID) and—this is very important—tell your family that’s what you want in the unlikely event of a tragedy involving you.  The people who would benefit from it will never be able to thank you themselves, so I’ll take this opportunity to thank you in advance for them.