Transplanted.

This is what is said on the COTA website. I still stare at it. It is still surreal. You know that the only thing that will save your daughter is a heart transplant, and you wait and wait, and then you receive that call that you have been praying for, and everything happens so fast.

I was not even suppose to be in Loma Linda for the “call”. I came out for other reasons. We had just talked to the cardiologist like 2 hours prior to talk about the exemption he put in the day before that moved her up to 1A status. We were at the apartment and Andrea got the call first, but she was in the kitchen making dinner and so did not hear it. I was then called and picked up. I thank Andrea every day selfishly for not answering the phone, because it is one of those phone calls I will remember forever. I just couldn’t believe it. There were definitely a lot of tears. And everything happens fast. We got the call at 5:47 pm and she was brought down to surgery at midnight. Talk about nerves! You don’t even have time to really wrap your mind around it. Before you know it, you are praying and nervous as the surgery is being performed. But in terms of heart transplants go, she had the perfect one the surgeons tells us. She was the most optimal she could have been going into it, which has made recovery as good as it can go. She even came up extubated, which has shocked everyone. God definitely has had his hands on our little one.

Now we are on the back end of this, comes all the information we need to know to bring her home and getting her meds figured out. They told us that meds cost between 5000-6000 a month and insurance usually only covers 50-80%. I have already told her that she better get a college scholarship! 🙂 I tell you what, God put her in a good family for this though. My wife is amazing and already has a schedule made out and is ready to go. She will be the primary care taker as I will be working. There is a lot of work to make sure she gets the best care. The very, very, high priority is taking her meds everyday and on time. This is when heart transplant kiddos get into trouble. And mainly times, sadly, this falls on the parents. I know that with us Emerson will be well taken care of.

Rejection can happen anytime and this scares me. We are told they have never had someone not go into rejection at some point. So we need to look out for this, so when it does come, we can get her the help her heart needs quickly. Rejection happens at its highest in the first 3-6 months, which is the reason we still need to hang around Loma Linda for a few months. 

I try to just think about one day at a time. When I start thinking more than that, I have panic attacks. What will my daughter’s future be? Will medications improve in 5, 10, 20 years? Will this help her heart last longer and stop rejection? Right now, they tell us her heart can last 20-25 years. I just pray that modern medicine keeps improving for transplant people.

For now, I focus on that I can get my daughter and my family back. And I pray everything goes well, and we can all be together in Vegas again. I pray that God is using this for big plans He has. I pray that Emerson will be a beacon of light for the heart transplant community. Because, by golly, she is one special girl.