“The Call”

With my lack of frequent posts, I usually try to catch y’all up on things, but I’ve got something more important to get to. Although, to summarize since my last post: we miss each other, living apart just gets harder, dialysis sucks, I’m working a lot, and God is good! A lot has happened over the last 48 hours, and I’m just now getting to sit down to catch y’all up. I decided to break things up; this post covers the call, getting to the hospital, up until just before Amanda got out of surgery. If you don’t care about how we got the call or my trip up to Tennessee and only want the nitty-gritty hospital details, jump to the next post; if not, enjoy:

So, around lunchtime on Tuesday, Amanda got “the call” we’d been waiting for. I was at work; it was a cluster with a train that hit a concrete crossing pad, and everything was plugged up. After assisting with that mess, I ended up getting on my train west of Alpine. It was in a beautiful spot, my favorite part of the run, with tall, sheer, dark brown-and-black rock cliffs 100-plus feet high. Tall cliffs, coupled with West Texas desolation, mean no cell service. I wasn’t on my train a few minutes when I got a call on the radio from a manager telling me to call my wife. 

Amanda had called the emergency number; I knew what it was and immediately told the manager I’d need to get off the train and a ride back home. He said to call her first and see; I explained further that I didn’t have any service, and any call to that emergency number meant I needed to get to Tennessee. I immediately grabbed my phone and headed for higher ground. The first higher ground I tried was the roof of my locomotive; if any of my managers from work are reading this, I’m just joking about that, but not really! That high ground- I’ll hold all the Obi-Wan/Anakin puns to myself- didn’t work. I have a newer iPhone with satellite texting, so I was trying to catch the next passing satellite to talk with Amanda as I hoofed it to a nearby hill. An engineer a couple of trains ahead had overheard the manager talk with me and asked if he could do anything; I said, call Amanda! He did and relayed to me that Amanda had gotten the call. Meanwhile, I finally caught a satellite and was able to text with her to get the details, but no luck with service to make a call. 

I got a text out to Bev; I knew Amanda probably hadn’t told her yet. She is terrible about asking for help, but I will line things up for her for sure. Yet, I could be dying and not ask for help for myself, so I get it! Bev is our go-to and was already lined up to take Amanda if she got the call while I was in Texas. I also had a few others lined up if Bev couldn’t. Turns out she was sick, a bad bout of vertigo and nausea. As we were able to move our train up, I was hanging out the window to make a call to Amanda; it was good to hear her voice. I then got a message out to the next in on the ‘get Amanda to the hospital’ list. I had that covered; I just needed to get off my train. Yet, with the incident and Amtrak and all its passengers waiting impatiently, I had to clear my train up first.

Amanda was in limbo and waiting for the official word that the donor kidney was good, though. She needed a dialysis session, and the surgeon was ok with her going ahead with a session. The call came in while Amanda was at a doctor’s appointment. So, she rushed home to start a session and wait for the official word, which they said would be about 4 hours after the call. Amanda and I were praying that dialysis session would be her last. With two false starts, we weren’t holding our breath yet that this was a for-sure deal. The kidney turned out to be a good one, and it scored really well. The lower the score, the longer the kidney is projected to last. Anything under 50 typically goes to children; this one scored 45, so that was great!

We did get a little info on the donor, which we never received about the heart donor. They were 40 years old and were a high-risk donor; that’s all we were given. They didn’t have any high-risk diseases like Hep C or HIV, though. They just had a high-risk lifestyle. Which means they could have been incarcerated, had a history of drug use with needles, been in a same sex relationship, or anything else of that nature. Though their lifestyle was high-risk, the kidney was not, thankfully.

I finally got off the train and into a van, but had a 3-hour drive to the depot, then a 2 or 3-hour drive to fly out depending on which airport I used. I was closer to El Paso airport. I opted to fly out closer to home and not leave my away-from-home car stranded so far away; I needed a few things from home, too. As soon as I got good cell service, I had my work cut out. I needed to get a message out to all our prayer partners, find a flight, and arrange Amanda’s transport to the hospital. She also had to have someone stay until surgery, which we weren’t expecting. Finding a flight was hard; my only option seemed to be an 8:10 pm flight out of Austin. San Antonio’s last flight was too early, and anything out of DFW or Houston was too early for me to get to as well. All morning flights wouldn’t get me to Vanderbilt with the ride in from the airport until 10 am. I was crunching numbers, and the Austin flight was going to be really close.

By the time I was in my Suburban, headed to the airport, Amanda had gotten the official word that the kidney biopsy was good and the surgeon approved. She needed to be at the hospital at 8 pm with an OR time of 6 am the following morning. I had a ride lined up for Amanda to the hospital and then someone to stay with her early in the morning before they took her back for surgery in case I couldn’t make a flight out. I had my mother-in-law pack a bag for me and meet me on the road as I came through town to save time. Then it was hammer down! I made it to the airport just as my flight was taking off. I had checked every way you could think of to get to Amanda. The earliest flight arrival option was to fly to the West Coast, then back East, arriving at 6 am, add an hour to deboard and catch a ride to Vandy. If I drove straight through all night, I could be there between 7 and 8; I chose to drive it.

I ran pretty hard all night long, only stopping for gas. An uneventful trip for the most part, well, till the end, but I’ll get to that in a minute. I could keep you entertained with my trip; I’ll spare you, but I do have one funny story. The last stop I made was unplanned; I was just running low on fuel and picked a random ghetto gas station/truck stop, one owned by East Indians. You know the type: an awkward smell to it, various odd items on the shelves, and attendants with thick accents that look confused by any questions beyond how much it is or where the bathroom is. And the dirty white tile floors in the bathrooms! Anyway, as I was checking out, my CarPlay connected to the car and immediately started playing a podcast. Usually it is Tim Wildsmith’s Daily Scripture podcast, our friend and the interim pastor at our Nashville church, that plays when this happens. At work, I had been listening to Renewing Your Mind with R.C. Sproul, a Reformed theologian and Presbyterian pastor. So a sermon began to play at full volume with Sproul, railing about the commandments in his raspy, deep voice. The attendant looked at me as if I was about to try to convert him forcibly! A good laugh for me on the final stretch of my long drive.

Our friend from church, Tara, and her daughter Scarlett took Amanda to the hospital. We knew she was helping with the kids camp at church the next day, so we didn’t expect them to stay with Amanda. They stayed with her all night till they took her back to pre-op, squeezing into the same pull-out chair bed! They even went back to the pre-op room with Amanda for a bit. I’d already talked with Amanda, and we said our goodbyes before she relinquished her phone. But she called from Tara’s phone later on. A pre-op goodbye isn’t anything new for us, but one over the phone was. It hurt to do it over the phone, but I was less than a couple of hours out. This was the first time I missed being by her side before a surgery.

I had not seen many troopers on my drive up, thank the Lord. I did pass one in the median on the toll road in Texas, cruise control set at just about 95. Calm down; the speed limit is 85 on that toll road, and most Texas drivers go 8-10 over anyway; the trooper obviously didn’t care. When I got into Tennessee, as with most of our trips lately, the trooper presence increased significantly; I probably saw 6 troopers between Memphis and Nashville. I was a little worried about getting pulled over, but thought with my story I could get off! Tennessee has the lowest speed limits on our 1000-mile trek from Texas, at a dismal 70mph and an all-too-long stretch of 65 leaving Memphis! I was on cruise at the Texas toll road speed limit. I guess the hedge of protection that was prayed around me was averting law-enforcement eyes; nary a one even acted like they were coming to get me. Not even the one I came barreling down on in the left lane! God is good!!!

About 45 miles out of Nashville, right after I got an update that Amanda’s surgery had started, there were two 18-wheelers in the left lane. I was moving significantly faster than them, but in the right lane, where everyone should be if you aren’t passing. I’m looking at you slow-driving left-lane campers; you know who you are! Well, about halfway up the rig’s trailer, he cuts me off bad as they both merged over in tandem. It was by inches that he missed me as I swerved toward the shoulder and fully stomped the brakes. Before you go off saying, “Well, you were driving too fast,” I was behind these left-lane campers for a while in the right lane, plenty of time for them to see me coming! After this, I felt my steering go tight. If you remember, I had the steering rack go out on me on the way home from the airport a few trips ago. I thought it was something to do with the fix going wrong. Soon after, I felt the tight steering go out, the engine get hot; I knew I’d thrown a belt. 

I pulled over just between some overflow truckers parked on the side of the road, leaving a rest area. Steam was billowing, and coolant was overflowing. Hood popped; I started to diagnose, easy and as expected: both belts gone. I looked for a tow company to see if they could pick up a belt and bring it out; three calls and not one answered. New plan: abandon the Burb and get an Uber. No luck there; a driver wouldn’t accept the ride. I’d sent a prayer update on what was going on. Tim texted back asking if I needed a ride; he was busy, but Becca could come to the rescue. After a little more waiting on a driver to accept on Uber, I took them up on the rescue offer. She was 45 minutes out, though.

I ended up backing the Burb into the rest area to avoid it being towed quickly. A friend called the highway department and made sure they wouldn’t tow it from there until I got out to fix it. Becca still got me to the hospital before the time a morning flight out of Texas would have gotten me there. She was ready to get me lunch and bring it back, or come in and sit with me, or whatever I needed. I told her I was good; I knew they likely hadn’t gotten much sleep since they were on standby to go be with Amanda early in the morning. Bev had asked about the Burb; she was feeling bad that she couldn’t be the hero and come to my rescue! I knew she was down and wasn’t going to bother her though. She gave me a few options: go try and fix it myself (which I was planning on), she could see if her neighbor Jason, a really good county type guy, could go look at it, have it towed, or she’d go “ignite” it, and I could collect on the insurance. She was kidding on the last part…maybe! I figured I might as well accept the help. 

Within half an hour, another friend of hers, Will, was on the way to get the keys; he happened to be heading that way. He was the type of friend you’d expect an I’ll go “ignite” your car on fire kind of person would have! He wheeled up and parked on the side of the street, needing to use the bathroom, chucked me the key to his car, and started running towards the hospital to find one. I tried to point him in the right direction, and he yelled: “No worries, I can talk my way in anywhere!” He ended up picking up the belts and got the Burb running. It ended up having some leaks; the overheating and pressure found all the weak spots in the old radiator. I told him I’d get it, limp it in, and fix it at the apartment. Bev later called me to say she had my keys and a radiator in her living room to get to me! No one claimed buying the radiator, just saying they were doing the Lord’s work. 

We really have been blessed with an amazing support system. Our OG support system back in Brackettville, too many all over the county who’ve helped us in countless ways, amazing church families both here and home, and a robust local support system here in Tennessee (with friends who’ll either fix your car or burn it to the ground, whichever you prefer!). The Lord has really blessed us with new friends who’ve become family, both inside and outside the church, and from all walks of life. We are blessed.