Recap of today's events

Friends and family,

I have 17 minutes to write this and keep it all on today's date. Can I hear an "Amen" for today's happenings? :) Ok, so it's been a whirlwind of a day and let me try to quickly recap and steal updates from my uncle and brother who have been at their computers the past few hours whereas I was not able to send updates. My brother would hope that everyone would be as technological as him and I are, but I realize some of you are not, so I will send this final update for the evening and then decide how to tackle tomorrow. One day at a time.

11:30 am (or somewhere around there): Dad received THE call!
1 pm: en route to Mayo Clinic via aircraft
1:50pm: landed in Jacksonville and was quickly taken to Mayo Clinic.

From there, I don't know the times until maybe all the events later this evening. My dad was checked in and prepped for a single lung transplant, b/c that's what he had been told would be happening. God is good. Moving along a few hours, many phone calls (each somehow ending with me having a rough time saying goodbye to him each time) later, he says they are going to really prep him now and things will be in the next hour or so. Ha, God took a time out for a bit to work some more magic. I was busy up on the AF base listening to my husband's band play when my phone starts going haywire and Debbie is trying to inform me that God has made it so my dad would not only get one new lung, but that he would receive TWO new lungs! The donor was a 6'2 man making the lung too large for the other recipient. God is GREAT! Not great that the other recipient didn't get a lung as well, but great b/c my dad ultimately needed TWO lungs and of course, God knew that the whole time. So they had already said their goodbyes to my dad before they found this out, but they were told my dad was informed. At 8:50 my dad was informed of the two lungs and was still alert and excited. Debbie of course is now worried that having a 6'2 man's lungs in my dad that he just might be able to beat her at basketball. Has she seen his vertical? Or lack of??:) Anyway, about an hour or so later, he was told it was go time because the new lungs were on their way. So what does my dad do? He leads a prayer for the surgical team! I love this Godly Man! He started surgery probably somewhere around 10 and at 10:32 pm, Debbie, Uncle Steve and family friends of ours in the area all watched the chopper land with my dad's new lungs. (Reference the attached picture. Sorry it's a little dark but what can you do for 10:30 at night and I don't have the super abilities to edit the picture at this late hour).



So now we pray and wait. The nurse has come out to report to Debbie and said things look good, the lungs included and that things were going smoothly. Wow. How's that for the past 12 hours or so? It's amazing how quickly God takes over complete control and says to us, "I told you so". He has had his hand in all this and I am speechless in how this has all played out. 3 weeks ago he was being told he had 6 months to live. A week later he was having 70 stitches put in his head for skin cancer and when I'm sure he was wondering when God would finally stop testing his never ending faith, POOF, the phone rings. Uncle Steve and I sat in church a few weeks ago and heard this verse, sorry Dad, I'm not making them look it up at this late hour.

1 Peter 5:10 : And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

Keep the prayers coming! The surgery will last until the wee hours of the morning so I hope to have another update sometime mid-morning. The pager is being tracked, so don't worry, even though my dad won't be able to know the beeps are coming in now, he will when he wakes up.


Job 33:4,

Christy

Just a pic I wanted to add of the envelope full of cards the girls made this afternoon for G-Man.