False Alarm/Dry Run

At 11:30 today I got a call from my stepsister, B. She said "I just got a call. There is a donor. Your mom is headed to the hospital from work, and my dad said he is fine to drive himself, so he is on the way there."
The next few hours were quite harried. I cried when I thought of the donor's family. I cried when I thought of my mom in that hospital waiting area alone (she's NOT--my brother is there, my aunt is on her way, chuch people, etc.--but I'M NOT THERE!)
I talked to my mom and she seemed fine. She said she was happy, which was a relief to me, because she has been really freaked out by the idea of this surgery. G. arrived at the hospital while I was on the phone and I talked to him for a few minutes. Then, I called my sister back and told her to call my mom's cell right away so she could reach her dad. (He never answers his--I think it's because he can't hear it ring.) I called my brother to be sure my mom had called him.
All of this is going on while I was driving down the interstate to take R. to have his stitches out. (STOP YELLING AT ME--I don't normally do that--this is a crisis situation we're talking about and I used a hands free device--sheesh!)
I began desperately trying to come up with a way to get to Dallas. Turns out, there is no affordable way. B & J found some tickets for them and for me, we would link up in LA and continue on from there. The tickets were $411. I have to buy 2, since the little kids are going with me, so it may as well have been $4000. I just don't have it. Southern California is lots of nice things--but cheap AIN'T one of 'em. (Notice the accent comes out in times of stress--even in typing!)
My friend L, cried because I wouldn't let her buy me the tickets. She called a few minutes later and said they had enough airline miles to buy us the tickets. When I told her that her husband might need to use those miles to go somewhere she said "I'm never letting him going anywhere!" She really and truly would buy those tickets for me without blinking an eye, just because she is a giving person. It made me cry that she even offered. I just couldn't let her do it.
Next, my next door neighbor said her daughter works for Southwest Airlines and she might have some employee passes we could use. She jumped up to go in and call her before she left work, and right about that time B. called back.
False alarm. Something wasn't compatible. She wasn't sure what, but she had to hang up and cancel tickets and babysitters and everything else, and try to make it to her room mom meeting (and there are people who say stay home moms don't work!)
After many calls back and forth across the country (God bless the fact that calls between Cingular cell phones are free!!) I basically got this information. One of the antibodies reverted. What the hell does that mean? It means that at the very very last minute (they had already signed the surgery consent and the nurses had drawn 22 vials of blood, but not shaved his chest) something didn't match up. It seems like they could check all that ahead of time, and for the most part they do. But, there is always a chance that something will screw it up at the last minute. One antibody didn't like the heart. Thank God they have a way to test for that. Anyway--his doctor tried to talk them into it, but the transplant team held firm. That is their job. It is for the protection of the patient, and to prevent the "waste" of the heart.
So--it is a lot like a space shuttle launch. You think that the only thing that can delay it is weather, which is easy to detect way ahead of time, but in reality, there are billions of tiny details that can throw it off.
The good news is, we all got a little practice at what this will be like. We learned what did not work, and as my sister said "We need a new plan, because our plan SUCKED!" She was referring to the fact that we couldn't figure out how to get there, which kids to take with us, etc. So--we are working on that (If anyone has any connections for cheap airline tickets--I could really use the info!!)
The other thing we learned is that it is REALLY GOOD that they called us when they got the first call. Originally, they were only going to call once they were sure and headed in. We learned today that those few hours in between gave us some adjustment time that we all definitely needed. If that call at 11:30 had been, "They're shaving my chest, talk to you on the other end," we would have all freaked out. We freaked out anyway, but at least by the next phone call we were settled a little.
So--now I am rambling because I am still not sure how to digest the whole concept that someone I know is having a transplant--a HEART transplant, and now it is literally going to happen within days. They have done 3 there this week and it is only Tuesday. Whoa. Keep prayin'!