Day 6 and 7... - 10pms..

Yesterday, Saturday I visited JM at the hospital. They moved him to the 4th floor - He is out of Intensive Care!
He looked great. He was able to move his back, his legs. He was awake and alert this time :)))) Now these coming weeks are very important. JM will being going through a battery of exams to see if the liver he has been given is functioning well and that his other organs are also adapting to this change. This is also a very fragile week in terms of his immune system, which is very weak right now. He needs to make sure he doesn't get sick or catch a bug. I talked to the doctor about this, my concern with his family having a lung infection and they are doing their best to keep a close watch and also run his lungs through exams every day. He has to blow into this machine often, he has x-rays done and other tests. I really let the doctor know my worries, but all she could say was that there was not much they could do if he catches something, that what his family caught was a virus in the air and they can only do their best to prevent that does not happen to JM. So with that, I grabbed a box of face masks from the hallway closet and placed them by his bed. I told him he has to wear one when the nurses come and that he has to make sure visitors(who start visiting next week Saturday) wear one at all times. So I sat there with my mask, JM sat there with his mask and then after 5 minutes he pulled it under his nose saying it was too hot. I told him if I could do it he could do it.
Today he called me from his room! The first thing I thought was GERMS!- He has a phone number that he can phone on. Again while visiting I thought the hospital room was not very super clean....but the doctor reassured me it was, but I just kept feeling like germs were everywhere. Doctor told me again it's not from the germs in the room that can get him sick, it's the air born viruses. --mask, mask, JM wear your  mask! I stayed with him awhile, took some pictures of the view out his window, you can see the Eiffel Tower in the distance, very very long distance away, but you can see it! It could have been on the other side of the building, but there it was!

Funny Story:
So JM is on a floor with other liver transplant patients. The night we were called in, two other people went through the same operation. These people are now on the same floor with JM. Before and during the operation taking place I often thought about why people get their liver transplanted. More often than not it is because they are alcoholics. JM is one here at Paul Brousse that is not an alcoholic...and let me tell you how I know that:
The other night..... Jm said he was sleeping peacefully when all of the sudden he was awaken by a loud voice just outside his door in the hallway! It was the patient next door who woke up, tore the wires off his body, got himself (with his new liver just being transplanted) out of bed and came screaming into the hallway demanding a bottle of rum! Then another, soon after did the demanding cigarettes and wine!!! JM just lay there, pulled the covers under his sweet little nose and was like "where in the world am I!" The screaming and yelling went on and on, these patients demanding beer and wine and cigarettes, yelling at the nurses, saying they were leaving! ....JM thought he was in an insane asylum. Can you believe this? Just a few days after being transplanted these guys are up and could care less if their liver falls out right then and there! And do you want to know what is worse? Do you really want to know what is worse than the worse??????
The worse is that my poor honeys liver...is probably inside one of these people! It's the truth!
 JM's liver is really not that bad or ill. It's not an ill liver.  All it does is that it produces this protein that settles on your nerves. The time it takes for the protein to kick in and for the liver to start producing the protein is 35 years. So, doctors give Amyloid patients livers to other elderly patients in need. These patients will never develop the illness, by the time they do if they do they will be 100! Can you get over that? I couldn't.  When JM calls to tell me the crazies are up and running again I think of his sweet little french/American influenced liver stuck in someones body thinking "get me the hec out of here!" ---Another thought: So who's liver does JM have...? That's another question I have which I won't think about since it is probably a sad story. All I really like to think about is how Collette Dannette, the coordinator, the lady who called me at 3am sunday night, said it was a "very beautiful liver....a beautiful liver the color of a light wine, a rose colored liver, nice and plump...tres tres beau." It was really a special moment for me when she went on and on about how nice the liver was at 4 in the morning. I asked her if she had actually seen it and she said "of course! that is how I know" Oui Oui!

Well the best news is is that JM is doing fine. He has made it through his first week very well. Now to see how the exams go this coming week. How are his organs responding to this new member?-- Teamwork everyone! TeamWork! I don't want to have get in there and give a pep talk but I will if I have too!