2018 - Good News, Bad News

 

This has been a year of “good news/bad news.” We’ll start out at the end of 2017, when I got a substitute teaching assignment working afternoons for a teacher at Open Door (mainly on-line learning, with a lot of marking for me to do). The students were grade 11 and 12, taking English or Communications classes. This was definitely good news, especially when I was officially hired to the job posting on February 14.

Bad news: about the time I started the job, I started feeling ill. By Christmas, I couldn’t even manage to do any baking. January and February continued this downhill slide, as I couldn’t even keep food down until noon, and I was getting Marcel to drive me to and from work. I was at the doctor’s office on Feb. 23 and was sick to my stomach, so he shipped me off to the hospital and I was admitted. Good news: I got in quickly and had several Christian doctors on my team. Bad news: It took awhile to get a diagnosis of a staph infection gone septic, and I was in the hospital for 18 days.

Spring break was over, and I was not needed at the teaching job, but I couldn’t return to the classroom because I was on oxygen full-time and in no condition to go from school to school, dragging tanks and hoses around. Good news: I was able to receive disability benefits through the BCTF. Bad news: I was also unable to return to work at O’Keefe Ranch.

In March, Mom and I flew WestJet to Vancouver for my visits to my specialist doctors for pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and pulmonary hypertension (PAH). We stayed with Bronson and had a good time with him and his cat as well as visiting Katrina and Tyler. Bronson lives about 5 minutes from Renfrew Baptist Church, so we went there twice. He felt very “at home” there and also enjoyed their weekly potluck after the service.

April was Anthony’s month. Travelling with oxygen on Air Canada was not as simple as expected and we were let down repeatedly by poor communication and customer service. Marcel and I and my mom did arrive safely in Terrace and had a few days to recover and get ready to celebrate Anthony’s marriage to Emily Holubowski. Being in Terrace so special, as our family had spent 10 years there, and now Anthony was getting married in the church I had attended from Grade 6 until my third year of university.

May and June were relatively quiet. I wasn’t getting stronger or “bouncing back” but I could still get myself to appointments. Mom and I started to go to Pulmonary Function classes, which turned into LungFit sessions in July, enjoying music and exercise.

August was wonderful, as I was able to “road trip” with Pam and Tom Morgan to the 40 year reunion of our high school class. Everyone was so kind and welcoming and I was glad to be there. I stayed with Anthony and Emily in the house they had bought and moved into in July. And then it wasn’t, as I was back in the hospital at the end of the month. The verdict was double pneumonia – no wonder I was feeling so tired.

Marcel and I drove down to Vancouver in September and stayed with Bronson for a week. I met with the lung transplant team, and had an angiogram. Based on the results of that test, the doctor wouldn’t let me leave Vancouver General Hospital. A day turned to two or three, then a week, and ...September, October, November, and December. I was put through a battery of tests in preparation for being put on the transplant list mid-October.

Good news, bad news. Despite many health issues, I have been in the best place with specialist doctors analyzing every issue. I was able to celebrate Thanksgiving with all my kids and my mom, and was able to watch Katrina’s graduation from SFU with her education degree (streamed live on YouTube). The kids prepared the Thanksgiving meal with loving care, making sure nothing contained salt (I was on a reduced sodium diet).

Tuesday, December 4th: after 12 weeks in hospital, it was Transplant Day. I was shipped into surgery at about 9 pm, after saying goodbye to Bronson and Anthony (who had flown down and got to the hospital as I was getting on the stretcher to go to the operating room). After that, I received my double lung transplant and spent the rest of December sedated, mainly unconscious, and often confused about what was actually going on in my life. Stay tuned for the Christmas letter of 2019, coming soon.