Leaving On A Jet Plane

I cannot get Peter, Paul & Mary's song Leaving On A Jet Plane out of my head the past few days. The song has a pretty similar meaning to what I have been feeling lately (except I'm leaving my father, of course). Dad also has been playing his Peter, Paul & Mary (PPM for short for today's purposes) Pandora station a lot, so I have heard many PPM songs over the past several weeks, including this one. In fact, I brought in my father's iPad into the TICU and played that station for him hoping that it would help relax him given all that he was battling. Last week, in the waiting room at SOPA, I even taught Dad the concept of putting headphones into the iPad to listen to Pandora and he was singing along to this station. Perhaps even he has a lot of PPM songs stuck in his head now, too.

I'm ready to return to my life in New Jersey. However, I am coming back with a very new perspective and I'm fairly weary. To say that I am grateful for my father's life-extending and quality of life-improving transplant would be a gross understatement. That being said, I also have endured a lot of stress over the past 6 weeks. Thankfully, I believe that Dad is truly medically stable and more independent and I feel more comfortable flying back home.

Enjoying the Outdoors

I am technically back to work and Dad has plenty of recovering to do from his huge surgery with significant complications, therefore I really shouldn't be doing much other than helping my father and doing work. However, the weather in Indianapolis has been beautiful the past several days and quite frankly, how can you pass that up? Given that I still have the rental car (take that, Indy!), I have tried to take advantage of the car and the weather every day for a little sanity. Indianapolis is an interesting city with not a huge downtown presence, however there are plenty of recently-rejuvenated areas that have made for welcome breaks from the hotel. In case you ever want to visit Indianapolis in nice weather, I have some suggestions based on our week...

We went to Garfield Park on Saturday for a little picnic. There happened to be a sidewalk chalk festival with live folk music and plenty of children (and the associated-ice cream truck was convenient for our dessert--and, yes, I believe in dessert after lunch these days) which certainly broke-up our first full day in the hotel. The park is pretty large with various facilities, but seems like a long-time established park.

Picnic at Garfield Park

"You Are Not Boring. We Like Boring."

Not only have I learned a lot about transplants in general in the 5 weeks since I have been here in Indianapolis, but I can now begin to appreciate that the IU transplant program is very impressive. I could describe at length how the team here work well together and do their respective jobs well and certainly saved my father's life.

Yes:
The medical team at Indiana Health University Transplant saved my father's life and I am incredibly happy that Dad endured the move to Indianapolis and the prolonged waiting process here

Dad going for a stroll around TICU with 2 nurses on Day 6 (and a nursing student trailing)

Dad working with one of the physical therapists on the OTU

Back to the Hotel

After months of living alone in a hotel room in Indianapolis while waiting for a liver transplant, Dad actually was somewhat attached to the particular residence hotel that he stayed. A hotel is certainly not the same thing as home, but my father spent most of his hours and days in one hotel room. In fact, not only did he get used to the environment, but the staff at the hotel all were a part of his daily life beginning on January 1st as well.

It is a strange environment at this hotel, as so many guests are waiting for various treatments at the hospitals nearby and are generally pretty sick. I suppose that the hotel staff get used to the unique nature of the guests and develop a different type of relationship. A few of the employees at the hotel frequently asked about how my father was doing as I was running back from or on my way out to the hospital. Once Dad was somewhat awake after this incredible ordeal, he recalled to me that some of the front desk folks would even call up to his room to check on him periodically before the transplant. Given all of that, I was not too surprised that Dad was actually looking forward to returning to the hotel after his long stay in the TICU, the Organ Transplant Unit, and eventually the rehab facility.

On Friday morning, Dad finally left all of the inpatient hospital settings behind and came back to the hotel. Here he is in the standard position with CNBC on the TV and in his recliner. We still have a long recovery ahead of us, but it's certainly nice to see progress in the form of a little comfort...

Flashback to Day 1: How We Learned of the Transplant

Today marks one month since Dad had his liver transplant. Since things have seemed to be somewhat medically stable the past few days, I figured I should recount parts of the actual day of the transplant since it was so...how to describe this....interesting?

Dad certainly likes to do things his own way. I usually understand his general reasoning, even when I do not agree with it, however the day of his transplant falls under a new category. I had to find-out that Dad had his liver transplant in a very unusual way: only once he was discovered missing and I had to fight several IU employees citing HIPAA laws and his wishes that I could not find-out anything about his condition. Awesome.

As if I wasn't on edge enough about everything going on, especially with the fear that he could start bleeding from his varices or become more encephalopathic (and end-up in a coma) or both at any point, frantically trying to find my father who went missing was absolutely terrifying....

http://vandelinder.wordpress.com/2010/10/29/pressing-the-panic-button/

They Tried to Make Me Go To Rehab...

Yesterday, Dad found-out he had insurance authorization to leave the hospital and go to a rehabilitation facility. As with most things we have experienced, this was a very frustrating process since we spent several days waiting for the insurance approval since he was medically ready for the next step of the recovery process after the long ordeal of transplant surgery and it's various complications a couple of days ago. I really do not understand why the insurance company would drag their heels like this (which I heard is very common) as it would only add to their bills, but I am trying to avoid this blog diving into the health care debate at this point.

To make it even more interesting, we literally were told at 5:30pm on a Friday that we had the green light to make the move from the hospital to the rehab center. Really? 5:30pm on a Friday? When there is no one around to have basic questions answered? When there is not enough time to grab some clothes at the hotel for Dad and try to arrange for a rental car for me? Yes. We were told at 5:30pm on a Friday.

Transferring from the hospital to rehab in style

Facebook Helps to Increase Organ Donation Awareness

I came home from the hospital last night to see an article that describes how Facebook is going to start encouraging organ donation through the ability for members to share their organ donation status on the ever-popular social networking website:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-05-01/Facebook-organ-donation-feature/54671522/1?fb_comment_id=fbc_10150792658168770_23024082_10150792715548770#fa5b3ac9

I thought the above article to be incredibly timely and interesting. My entire family has been very thankful for the gift of life that my father received. I hope that this outreach helps more families like mine.

Get Those Out of Here!

For those of you that do not easily feel queasy from medical-related images, today Dad had some of his staples removed from his incision. His belly is still pretty full of fluid (both from before and after surgery) and the photos don't capture the full length of his incision to his right side, but here is what it looks like 3 weeks after a liver transplant (and what a staple remover looks like, too--ha):

[Photos are shown in full post....]