When a Stranger Calls, Part 1
It was Friday, July 20 and I had been waiting on the heart transplant list for 129 days.
129 days maybe doesn't sound like that much, but in reality it's:
4.3 months
18.5 weeks
3,096 hours
So yeah, it was a lot of waiting underscored by a tremendous amount of underlying anxiety. Anxiety because when you're on the heart transplant waiting list, you truly have no idea when your phone is going to ring and you're going to need to rush off to have your heart cut from your chest and replaced with that of a kind stranger. And also anxiety because you have no idea if The Call is going to come in time. 22 people die every day in the U.S. while waiting for the chance of life that never comes... and I could feel myself slowly dying.
For me, the lion's share of this waiting took place on my living room couch. But on that particular day, the couch and all other furniture and decor had been moved into my kitchen and dining room so that we could have the carpet cleaned. The first floor of my home was in utter chaos.
I don't do well with chaos, it makes me feel very anxious. So by Friday evening and at my request, The Boy had moved most of the heavy pieces of furniture back into the living room and after an unusually quiet dinner, we settled into our usual spots on the giant couch to watch a little TV. I figured the chaos was causing my anxiety, but I didn't know exactly what was up with him. Although we both had given up drinking in August 2017, occasionally he would have a glass of wine from the slowly dwindling supply in our wine cooler (which had become a soft drink cooler by then), and that night he announced to me that he thought he'd have a glass of wine.
I don't mind when Derek drinks, even though I can't. And with all he had taken on in our household due to my worsening condition he was certainly entitled to a little self-medication. I noticed that by 10 p.m., Derek's "glass" had turned into three, but I didn't say anything. I didn't even ask him what was wrong. I just sat numbly, staring at the TV, lost in my own anxiety and listening to the tempest roaring inside of my head, until it seemed like bedtime. It had been a weird night.
When we finally crawled into bed, Derek wrapped me in his arms and I started silently crying. The roar of sound in my head had been replaced by very vivid images of a chest cut open, a rib cage spread apart, a heart beating in a chest cavity. My heart. The one attached with lots of nerve endings and lying beneath muscle and skin and bone. I kept thinking of the reality and the trauma of what a heart transplant was going to be and I was overwhelmed with the sense that it was close.
Eventually my body began to shake as I started sobbing and Derek asked me what was wrong. "It's coming. The call is coming," I told him.
"I know," he said softly, his breath warm on the back of my neck.
"No, it's coming. This is happening. I can feel it. I don't want to do this. I can't do this. I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS!" And with every ounce of my being, I promise you, I didn't want to. I wanted to run away as far as I could and hide and not let anyone ever cut into my chest or take my heart away from me.
But Derek soothed me. In his quiet but firm and confident way, he softly told me that it would be okay, that I had to do it but that it would be okay. I'm not sure how many different ways he said this to me in the dark, his body wrapped around mine, but eventually, I slept.
Saturday morning dawned hot and bright blue, a perfect July day. Summer in the Seattle area was really hitting its stride and after sleeping until after 10 a.m., I finally came downstairs with the mission of pulling my living room decor back together. Derek told me that he was going to take Gus (our 12.5 year old yellow lab) on a real hike.
This pleased me for a couple of reasons: First and foremost, both of them needed the hike. Derek had been cooped up for too long and deprived of both exercise and sunlight, and the movement would be great for Gus's hip dysplasia. But beyond that, this meant that I would have the house to myself for a couple of hours. TO MYSELF! That hadn't happened in quite some time and I saw a golden opportunity to cull some of the living room clutter before putting everything back in its place and ridding myself of that massive source of stress.
But something was nagging at me, tickling the part of my brain that is so great at producing massive levels of anxiety: The call was coming. And I really didn't want to be alone when it came. I told myself I was being ridiculous. It was Day 130 on The List, and it was going to be just like any other day... I needed to let the boys have their fun. So I didn't say anything.
While Derek was gathering a few things for their hike, I noticed my mobile phone was on silent and quietly freaked out. This was a huge no-no because when you're on the list, The Call can come at any time, and it's likely to be from a phone number you don't recognize. If you don't answer, they'll call your other contact numbers, leaving a message at each. But if you don't return the call within 10 minutes, "your" heart will be passed along to the next person. So you always have your ringer on and I always chose to have it turned up as high as possible so that I wouldn't miss it. My chosen ringtone was Wham's "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go," mostly because it's a happy song that I couldn't imagine playing in our home for any other reason because Derek hates it and one of my character flaws is that I like to torment him a little. But to be sure, by Day 130 of answering telemarketing calls after a blast of that little ditty, we'd both had enough of it.
Still, I turned the ringer on.
Finally the boys left for their hike and I started going through my living room clutter, enjoying the solitary stillness and quiet of the house. About 20 minutes later, at 12:35 p.m., my reverie was interrupted by the incessant peppiness of George Michael & Andrew Ridgeley's 1984 hit.
And I knew. This wasn't a telemarketer.
I hurried from the dining table to the coffee table where my phone was sitting, looked at the number and saw that the call was coming from Indianapolis.
And I knew. This wasn't a wrong number.
With an unsteady hand and a trembling voice, I answered "This is Andrea" and a woman with a very pleasant voice began speaking. She said her name was Tanya and that she was calling because she had been speaking with Dr. Koomalsingh (Kevin) and Dr. Masri (Carolina) and they felt like they had a heart for me.
THEY HAD A HEART FOR ME.
I somehow managed to walk to the island in the kitchen, pull out a bar stool, grab a pad of paper and a pen and sit down while she was saying these things. I had planned for this moment, I knew what questions to ask, so I remained calm and started interrogating poor Tanya like an inexperienced detective in a bad Lifetime movie. I asked her over and over for more information on the heart, but all she could tell me was that it was "young" and that it was not high-risk.* She couldn't tell me what "young" meant, if the donor was male or female, or where the donor was located. And so as it always is for heart transplant recipients, it was up to me to take the leap of faith and say yes.
So I did. Tanya told me I needed to get to UW within about 4 hours and that the surgery would be at 4:00 a.m. Sunday morning. The tempest had returned to my head and narrowed to a single tornado-- and by all measures, it was 100% an F5-- but I had questions I knew I needed answers to. She told me I could eat, but advised me to stick with something light, like maybe saltines. I remember thinking that I didn't want saltine crackers to be my last meal, certainly not the stale ones in my pantry. And yes, of course I thought about food! D and I had always joked that we would have a "sushi party" after I got the call since I'd never be able to eat sushi again post-transplant. Saltines just weren't going to cut it. She also told me that I could take a shower. I honestly don't remember anything else from that conversation other than the realization she wasn't going to be tricked into giving me any more information on the donor or the heart. But God knows I tried anyway.
20 minutes later, we hung up. I was numb. I called Derek's mobile number and after several rings, he picked up. We had a bad connection and at the sound of his voice I started crying again. I eventually managed to croak out the words "I got it." Derek is one of the most even-keeled people I've ever met and while he was clearly trying to keep his voice calm, I could hear that he was feeling all of the same things I was. He called for Gus and assured me that they were only about 20 minutes away and would be back as soon as possible. I told him we had 4 hours and to not drive like a maniac. I remember that his answer made me smile: "Act like you know me!"
I called my parents and within 90 seconds told them everything I knew. They assured me they'd be flying out from the Texas Hill Country as soon as possible. I could hear tears in my Mom's voice and my Dad's voice was a little higher than usual, filled with emotion. I called my sister and did the same thing. I remember that she started crying and I could hear fear in her voice and she told me she'd be here as soon as possible. I didn't know it then, but she was on vacation in the Chicago area.
I called my best friend Vicki and got her voice mail. I knew that they were having their son's 9th birthday party and she wasn't likely to pick up so I called her husband, just in case he happened to be looking at his phone. But I got his voice mail too. So I texted her with "I know it's Ridge's birthday party but please call me as soon as you get this." I felt terrible doing it because I knew she'd immediately know what it was and I didn't want to ruin Ridge's big day... but I needed to talk to her. She's been my closest ally for 21 years and had talked me off of the cliff more than her fair share of times... I really needed to hear her voice.
And then I didn't know what else to do. So like any sane person who is having a heart transplant in less than 24 hours, I started decorating my living room again. After a few moments I realized that I was basically just pacing around like a caged animal with some wooden statues from Africa in my arms and was dangerously close to a complete melt down. So I called my friend Elizabeth F, who is gentle, kind, excessively rational, and wonderful at calming me. I tried her a couple of times but the call kept going to voice mail and I was really about to completely panic. (She later told me that she of course immediately knew why I was calling-- because who calls each other anymore?-- but that the call kept dropping.) And then she called me back. I brought her up to speed and started repeating to her "I can't do this... I can't do this... I can't do this!" I was very nearly hyper-ventilating by this point, still standing in my living room with my phone in one hand and an African statue still in the other.
In her best Elizabeth way, she softly and firmly said "Andrea, list to me: You don't have to do this. You can call her back and turn it down if this doesn't feel right." I breathed for a moment... and just like that, it was okay. I knew that I didn't have a bad feeling about the donated heart, that I was just frightened and that was a normal reaction... but everything in my being desperately wanted to live. So there was absolutely no question about how to proceed. We had previously arranged that she or her daughter Sarah would stay with the pets when we got "The Call" and so we moved on to talking about that and she told me that Sarah would plan on spending the night at our place. And by the time we hung up, I was rational again. There's nothing that brings more peace to a member of the Planning Tribe than planning something.
In my newly tranquil state, I realized that decorating the living room was probably not going to happen that day, so I set the African statue down. I remembered that I had put together a checklist of things to do when I received "The Call," so I pulled that up on my Wunderlist app and was about to start working through my list when Gus and Derek burst into the house. I remember we moved quickly towards each other across the expanse of newly cleaned carpet and in my head there was a beautiful swelling of glorious orchestral or maybe even Barry Manilow music underscoring everything just like in a movie as he swept me into his arms, and then we were saying words but I don't remember what they were... when suddenly I realized that I was hugging someone who had just been out on an midday hike in the summer. So I pulled away and said the most awful thing anyone has ever said in a life-changing moment like this: "Ew, you're sweaty."
We looked at each other in the midst of the chaos in our house-- and in our lives-- and we laughed. And suddenly, I knew it was going to be okay.
It was Day 130. The wait was over. I had finally received The Call... and I was going to live.
*A high-risk heart comes from a donor who is known to have engaged in risky behaviors that could result in infection from HIV or Hepatitis C. These behaviors might include, but are not limited to, using intravenous drugs or working in the sex industry.