The Call

As we are at the start of Holy Week and holy expectancy and in the season of wait, I wanted to share a story with y’all.

Wait.  It’s a four letter word, to be sure.

Waiting is HARD.

My family experienced a season of waiting in 2017.  It was so very very long and very very exhausting.  Many know (at least now) that my father-in-law was diagnosed with IPF, or Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, a few years ago.  With the diagnosis came no real sense of urgency as the disease isn’t the most understood, thus the “idiopathic” part.  However, after some research on Dr. Google and some visits with pulmonologists, the “cure” came to light.  A lung transplant was necessary.  UGH.  Urgency then became the undercurrent of feeling in our Parrish family.

I’m not sure if any of you are familiar with the transplant process, but those that are know it’s quite grueling.  Lots of tests that include pokes and prods in all of the nooks and crannies of your body are the core of the process, but there is much else to be considered.  It’s not an easy task to get listed.

My father-in-law had begun the process at the beginning of 2017 at UAB in Birmingham, Alabama and was doing his best to ace all of the tests necessary to get him a set of new-to-him lungs.  The hoops were rigorous but my mother-in-law drove him to each set of hoops and encouraged him to jump.  It was exhausting to the both of them, and we as family have never felt more helpless, but we clung to hope.

However, Bob’s lungs had different plans.  The ones knitted together in the womb of his mother were becoming unraveled.  And at a frighteningly fast pace.

In October, we had to hurriedly have Bob admitted to Phoebe.  He was on a downhill slide that is a hallmark of IPF.  He had done this before but was able to ascend the hill, yet the nature of this beast of a diagnosis is peaks and valleys, with the peaks becoming shorter and the valleys deeper as time progresses.

He still hadn’t made it on a lung transplant list.  Time was growing shorter and the wait was growing longer.

Fortunately, the powers that be and the Power above were able to orchestrate a move for Bob to Shands Hospital in Gainesville, Florida.  The doctors there allowed him to come though he wasn’t an official patient of their pulmonary department; he would still need to complete a few criteria for official listing on a list.  THE list.  We clung to hope.

After final evaluations, the transplant team decided to place Bob on the ECMO machine.  I’ve written about that miracle machine in a previous blog–it is both mind-blowing and life-giving.  Then we waited.  And we prayed while we waited.  We clung to hope some more.

The morning following Bob’s procedure of having the ECMO placed, Bobbie was informed in the elevator by one of the transplant doctors that he was officially listed.  And number 1 on the list.  He told her now we wait (some more)–lungs could become available in mere hours or several weeks.  Hopefully.  More wait, less time to wait.  Anxiety was high.

Alan and I along with our kids weren’t able to get to Gainesville until Wednesday, November 1st.  It was late evening so  Alan wasn’t able to lay eyes on his father until the following day.  That Thursday morning, Alan headed to the hospital to give his mom some respite.  Bobbie came to our hotel room to clean up and get her mind around things or off of things but mostly just away from things.  We piddled around that day for a bit and got her back to the hospital.  Bobbie and Alan traded places, and I knew when I saw Alan’s face that he was worried.  His father was very ill, scary ill.  And again, we all felt helpless.  Bobbie called that night and said the nurse said we could bring the kids up the next day to see Bob.  That notion formed a catch in my throat, but I tried my feeble best to cling to hope for all of them.  All of them.  That catch hurt.

Friday morning we got up and took the kids to Shands hospital to see their grandfather.  Outside of Big Daddy’s pod, we suited up the children in gowns and masks, along with ourselves.  We walked in, navigating tubes and emotions, and saw him laying there.  He was so tired, but mustered a smile for us all, but mostly for the grandkids–his heart.  About the time we entered, a young gentleman with a guitar came to offer to play a few songs–music is therapy.  Bobbie requested “Wagon Wheel” which we all forcefully sang with joy, and then she had him play, “Islands in the Stream.”  Now if you’ve seen either of my in-laws, they are in the running to be Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers number one doppelgängers.  And they do love this song.  I watched her sing to him, and him look at her, and that look was one I’m not sure has words adequate to narrate.  The catch was back.  It hurt worse.

I collected our belongings and the children and I took Bobbie with us, again leaving Alan to be with his Dad.  Though he was mostly sleeping now, I think he knew love was in the room with him.  When we arrived back at the hotel, Bobbie proceeded to shower.  I took that time to call my mom, read my Bible, and pray.  Pray. Pray. Pray. And hang on to the hope.

On Friday, November 3 at 4:00 PM, I texted my prayer warriors this:

Hi all! I wanted to ask you guys to pray again.  Bob is very tired as is Bobbie.  They are just weary.  And exhausted.  Would you pray for the lungs God has in mind for him to come quickly with me? And pray for the donor and the family of him or her–I feel very compelled by the Spirit to pray for them, especially knowing that wanting them so quickly means less time for that soul on earth.  It’s all so very heavy.  There are so many sick people here, it just feels like a huge weight.  But I know our Father is good, and He is able, and I pray for His will to be done and His name to be glorified.  I am purposely choosing to place it at His feet and then leave it and quit trying to pick it back up!! Waiting just goes hand in hand with anxiousness–which is not of God, I know– but that seems to be where the mind goes.  I’m praying that in the wait we press more into God and TRUST and have FAITH, which is our Father’s will for us.  Please just continue to pray for them both.  I cannot thank y’all  enough for being on this prayer journey with us.  It means more than you’ll ever know!!  Bob is the very top of the list, he just needs the lungs God intends to share with him.       (and y’all don’t block my number yet with all of these group texts pretty please!)

Bobbie finished dressing and said she’d like to go to the mall to find some comfortable shoes.  Now a detail that you need to know about Bobbie: she loves shoes.  Love loves shoes.  So much so that you can guarantee she’ll have a sackful packed for spending the night off for one evening.  She’ll forget her underwear and even her toothbrush but by golly she will have.her.some.shoes.  Loves ’em.

We got to the mall and headed into the Dillard’s of Gainesville.

I said to Bobbie in my redneckiest voice, “There’s your sign!” in an attempt to get a grin. She chuckled as we headed up to that floor.  We were flitting from shoe to shoe, attempting to find the most comfortable pair for her to pace the floors at the hospital, and she racked up several pairs for the kind and patient shoe sales girl to get in her sizes.  I admit I plucked a few too, because shoes.  I don’t hate them…

It was getting close to dinner time as the children in tow were mumbling about tummies rumbling, so when Alan called I figured he was in the same sort of state.

“Oh hey babe.  How are y’all?”

“We’re good, how are y’all?”

“Good, trying on shoes, you getting hungry?”

“Uh, not really, are the kids?”

“Getting there…”

“Well guess what?”

“What?”

“We got lungs.” cracked voice on the other end.

“WHAT???????”

“We got lungs.”

“WE GOT LUNGS OH MY GOSH WE GOT LUNGS BOBBIE WE GOT LUNGS!”

Bobbie, in the most guttural sounding shriek  I’ve heard in my life: “We’ve got lungs??? We’ve got lungs? We’ve got lungs? Oh thank you God, we’ve got lungs!!!”

Tears are flowing on everyone.  The lady bringing us the shoes, the lady trying on the Uggs, me, Bobbie, the kids, the lady from the lingerie department across the way.

Tissues were flying like ticker tape at a parade. Rejoice!

IT WAS HOLY GROUND.  We were standing there, barefoot.  On Holy Ground.  It was only the most appropriate place to get that call.

“Then the LORD said to him,

‘Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground.”

Acts 7:33

With fingers shaking, I texted my prayer warrior group at 5:39 PM, roughly an hour and a half after my previous text:

Y’all!!!!!!! We have lungs!!!!!!!!!! Surgery at 4 am!!!!!!!!  Pray saints pray!!!!!!!!

And from what I understand, there was Holy Ground all over the south.  Our God is good.

My mother-in-law walked out of the Dillard’s shoe department with no less than five pairs of shoes that afternoon, and the weight of that wait now lifted.

**This image doesn’t show my mother-in-law’s bare feet because she would flat kill me dead for doing such.  It doesn’t show mine either because I care about your eyes.**

And while the rest of the (abbreviated) story is that Bob received a lung transplant and life (and I’ll share more at another time) and I don’t want to diminish any of that fact, the moral here is that the wait is always worth it.

Always always worth it.

Any of y’all standing in line for your turn for whatever it is your waiting for, it’s worth it.  Hang in there, though your feet may grow tired of standing, your mind exhausted from the process, your heart barely beating in your chest from weariness…

I myself will sit in God’s waiting room for as long as it takes.

Because I know first hand it’s worth it.