LIVE (SORTA) FROM THE TRANSPLANT NOOZROOM
Hope I didn't hype you up too much with the above subtitle, 'cuz there ain't much to report. We did attend a very good TRIO meeting once again at the palatial El Camino Hospital in Mountain View. Ana Stenzel (co-author with twin sister Isa of the autobiography The Power of Two ) brought a speaker. The speaker discussed and actually led the (large) group in a visualization/relaxation exercise. It was surprisingly effective, as several members fell asleep and tumbled from their chairs ("they're no fun, they fell right over"). Everyone else were too relaxed to assist them, so they were just left on the floor like large piles of Dirty Laundry (do I hear Don Henley in the background?) until the rest of us came out of our trances. OK, OK, I made that crap up, but the relaxation part is true...gimme a freakin' break, alright?
A nice feature of the meeting was a brief chat with both of the Stenzels. You may recall their incredible story, which is being made into a feature-lenght documentary. They both told me how well it looked like I am doing, and how they remembered me from earlier meetings as kinda grey and flat (not FAT, but FLAT). They are truly amazing, and the book is well worth a read. Local, trustworthy individuals are welcome to arrange a loan if desired.
Our Presidente del TRIO, Steve O., passed along a request from some high-tech company who are developing a tiny computer that you swallow, and it tells you when to take your pills. Please trust me, this is for real. I already got one of those, they call it "Cheryl Lynette Moss" and it is definitely not ingestible. Sorry, Dear. Anyway, this little micro thing also tells you what the medication is doing, or some such nonsense. Doesn't it er, uh, move through your "system" and possibly get flushed at some point? Do you have to take a new one every time you, um, "go"? I am a damn dummy so I did not understand the You Tube video of the marketing lady's explanation. But they want to talk to transplant recipients (kidney) about it, since we all take hella pills. And I think they might pay you in some way. Sounds like a plan to me. Shoot, I forgot to take my 3:00 pm pills! I'll be right back, just stay put. (Ten minutes go by) OK, I'm back. Let's continue...
A WELL-EARNED TRIBUTE
I must say my main purpose in writing this post is not to fill your tired brains with more dangerously irrelevant bird dookie as illustrated above. No, completely the opposite in this case. I apologize (I'm sorry) to those of you who already know this, but there are a few folks that probably aren't aware of how exactly we got to this much-improved stage in our lives. So bear with me as I provide a bit of history.....
Back in the mid-Eighties, Cherie's Dad, Bill Cook, started to get extremely spacey at times, often not knowing where he was and forgetting what had transpired. The diagnosis was advanced liver failure, unfortunately the result of severe cirrhosis. His doctor at Kaiser told him he had maybe six months, that was how bad it was. And, naturally, he was told a transplant was out of the question, in part due to his advanced age of 58!
Those who may have known my Mother-in-law Joan Cook also know she did not accept that decision. She went at Kaiser full-bore, with meetings, letters to the American Liver Foundation, appeals, more letters and on and on. And this was while she is keeping her husband alive on lots of meds and a totally screwed diet (500 mg. sodium per day, hardly any protein, all prepared from scratch) while raging a pitched battle with Kaiser....not to mention keeping their Renaissance Faire and Harvest Festival businesses running. Incredible.
Kaiser finally relented, and Bill went on the liver transplant waiting list at UCLA. They moved to a small studio apartment on Sepulveda Blvd. in LA, and waited for that beeper to tell them to get to Westwood, and fast. After 6 months of waiting it did just that, on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, 1987. All of us kids and our kids mobilized and headed down "The Five" in bumper-to-bumper traffic. We had Thanksgiving dinner at a Mexican restaurant at the top of some tall building in Santa Monica while the surgery went on into the the next day.
The operation went very well, but some distraction was caused by my Dad going into Kaiser Northridge with a bleeding ulcer. Everything turned out OK, though. So did the transplant, and the joy and relief were quite evident. For his breathing exercises, Bill played his clarinet, so there was a lot of music around the post-transplant unit.
Bill was a new man, and enjoyed six great years, and his grandkids had the invaluable opportunity to spend time with him, until he somehow contracted liver cancer. He passed away in August 1993. So besides a bittersweet story, what's the point? The point is that my Mother-in-law was a true gem, one of the most amazing people I have ever known. She never met a stranger, and she was incredibly generous and supportive of a lot of causes. Luckily for me, transplantation was one of them. When I knew my kidneys would fail, she was the one who dragged me by the hair to TRIO. She wanted me to see and hear transplant success stories, as well as some hard facts about the process. Not a walk in the park, as you all know.
We lost Joan early in 2005, and, as with Ruth, Walt (who we lost in mid-2005) and Bill, we will always be a bit wistful that none of them were around to be here for this exceptional thing.
Again, fortunate for me that Joan and Bill had three awesome kiddoes, one of whom for some unknown reason took a liking to Your Editor and Publisher. Yes, Dave and I hit it off right from the beginning....ha ha. And, well, Robin did gave me the old Stink-eye for a while, like about twelve years. But you know I mean Cheryl, and yay for me, she accepted my awkward marriage proposal. And we lived happily ever after...until we were not as happy. For health reasons, as you might have guessed.
What I am attempting to say, in about six jillion too many words, is that "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" in this case. History does in fact repeat itself, with Cheryl facing a formidable challenge and taking it on much like her Mother did. No, we did not have to fight with UCSF or Muir to allow me to "try out" for a transplant. As a matter of fact, all I needed (I thought) was a kidney from either bro-in-law, Patrick or Dave, and both offered, which is more than awesome right there. After 2 years of evaluations and testing of Pat, Dave and myself for the kidney transplant, it was decided by UCSF that it had to be a package deal, with a heart included and from the same deceased donor. So the additional testing, evaluation, wait time, and likelihood of an appropriate donor increased the stress and complications a hundred fold. The chief heart/lung surgeon even told us on at least two occasions (with his world-famous lack of "bedside manner") that this was fairly unlikely to happen. So we trudged on, both of us and our friends and families enduring endless dialysis, nocturnal dashes to various emergency rooms, and increasing depression on my part.
While I laid down on most jobs except to tough out dialysis and chest pains, Cheryl mobilized. She basically took on everything while attempting to keep some kind of sanity in her travel business and our home. I didn't feel like driving (even the S2000) so she did all that. And it was a lot, starting with Joan's death and then running up and down the state trying to tend to my Father who was busy sliding down the slope of congestive heart failure, kidney failure, and uncontrolled diabetes. When he took himself off dialysis and quickly died, we spent as much time as we could in LA trying to assist my Bro' and Terre with all the affairs that come with a death. And that was just 2005. We had no idea that it would be nearly five more long years before a transplant would actually take place.
This in no way belittles all the help and support we had from our kids and their partners (Leslie, Chris, Linsey and Andy, I love you guys), all the Cook/Moss/Caples/Chaw families, our unbelievable friends and quite a lot of people I didn't even know. I was told at least two congregations prayed for me weekly, and similar expressions came from many other individuals. And this also does not ignore the truly amazing doctors, nurses, coordinators, technicians and even the parking guys at UCSF. However, through this whole incredible journey, there is one central, shining example of true love and dogged determination to make this happen...I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count.
So Cheryl, my very Dearest Sweetie, "Thank You" hardly gets it. As you said many times along the way, when you dragged me back onto my (wobbly) legs time after time, "We are a team". Every team should have a leader, and I am too fortunate for words that you adopted The Principles of Joan to guide us to this happier place. I love you more than I can ever adequately express.
Bob/Irv
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