My hot 26 year old sister...
 

... just went in for a lung transplant. She's been on a waiting list for quite a while, and the call came this morning. They left here about 30 minutes ago, figure it's a good 2 to 2.5 hours' drive to Tampa General (rush hour is just starting here) and then straight under the knife. It'll be quite some time before we know anything more.

In all seriousness, those of you who have faith, please pray.

(also, the first person to say "pics or ban" will be banned.)

Good luck to her, hope everything goes well. I know it's not quite the same as a heart transplant but after my grandfather had his he was like a whole new person, even his personality changed, never needed glasses again, weird shit. Hopefully she'll be better than ever when it's all over.

she'll be in my prayers tonite.

Hope everything goes smoothly, lung transplants are very common so it should go through without a hitch.

Still sorta wondering why you reffering to her as your "hot" sister... I'm doing my best not to walk through the door you just opened

But seriously, hope everything goes well!

Joe I hope everything will go well for your sister. TGH is a good hospital and they will take good care of her. Hopefully they will put her in a room that overlooks Davis Island and the Bay.

PS
Welcome to FL.

My dad got his liver transplant on Dec 24th of 2000. Hope all goes well.

Hope all goes well bro. She will be in my prayers.
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Joe - My thoughts will be with your family as she takes this step towards a long and healthy life.

She will be in my prayers.





Of course I need to be careful how I phrase this to my wife. Can't say: "I'm praying for a hot 26 year old girl."

Joe,
Best wishes to you and yours. It is amazing what medicine can do these days, and lung transplants have become almost "routine".



Coincidentally, my g/f's dad is going under the knife this morning also. He was diagnosed with lung cancer on Monday. They may remove an entire lung today.

joe, she'll be fine.

just DO NOT tell her "oh yeah, I broke my foot--I know exactly how it is to have a lung transplant"

just be thankful...iirc, you can get pain medicine with a lung transplant....since everything passes through the liver, my dad received nothing for pain after his surgery....and to think a few more months and i was going to give him half of mine, I dunno if my pussy self could have handled that.

Joe, my thoughts are with you and your sis. I know it's not nice trying to 'wait' through something like this and there is nothing I can really say to put you at ease except that I am sure she will wake up a new woman with a long life ahead of her. I hope for you two to have at least another 50 years of happy memories man :wavey:

Hope she has a speedy and safe recovery!

Godspeed to her. I hope everything goes well.

prayers to you and yours. :)

Joe,I wish your sister a speedy recovery and good wishes to you & you family.

Wow! That's some serious work. Doctors do unbelievable stuff like this all the time. I'm sure she'll be OK, but my prayers are with you both.

You do know that the liver regenerates? As in you give him half of yours and then in some time it grows back to its normal size so you could have helped your pops and been back to full alcohol processing capacity pretty quickly.


I'm a firm believe that if we can turn a women into a complete man, then anything is possible.
-----------

My thoughts go out to her.

Btw, is she getting both transplanted or one? I know humans can survive with one lung pretty easily. Why the transplant?

All the best, Joe. Modern medicine is truly a marvel.



....aren't you married?

She will be in our thoughts and prayers. Best wishes for a speedy and better than ever recovery.

Joe, what caused her to need the transplant so young?

You'd be surprised at the lung conditions that younger people have. The primary condition that afflicts younger people is cystic fibrosis. More and more people under the age of 60 are getting diagnosed with COPD also.

Joe - good luck and I will say a prayer for her. Any updates on surgery?
Stephanie

I hope all is well.

I found out the other day that a friend of mine is a friend of hers, small world.

Thanks, all. Still no word. I found out that they didn't actually start until a couple of hours ago, it'll be probably 7 or 8pm before we have another update. After that she's going to be in isolation for 24 hours, so it'll be tomorrow night at the earliest before I can get in to see her. So for the moment I'm staying put in Port Charlotte.

Kinda weird that this decided to happen while I was not just in town, but actually staying at the family house. The phone rang this morning at about 5:30 as I was sleeping on the couch, and I just rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. About two minutes later I hear crying- the women are all hysterical, her daughter (3 years old) is freaking out, etc etc...

Just last night, she & I were joking about how she'd seen some TV news story the day before about underage drinking and how a record number of teens had been killed this past year, and she couldn't help but think "Well, that's more chances for me!" Just freaky...

Stephanie nailed it- CF. Actually, I'm surprised you knew about that, Steph, it's not a "big name" disease, but it's one that's almost universally fatal by the late teens to early 20s. She's already outlived the odds, so I guess every day after today is gravy.

Standard procedure here at MT.net- use a seductive yet thoroughly misleading post title to sucker people into a thread that is morbid, unpleasant, or gross. I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity.

Hahahaha :bowrofl: I'd pay real money to see the Polaroid shot after that.


It's my understanding that they actually perform some kind of nerve block around the effective areas. The problem is that, immediately after sawing your whole abdomen apart and gutting you like a turkey, they want you up and about, breathing deeply, etc pretty much the next day, to get the new organs up and running properly. This would obviously be hellishly painful, so instead of oral or even IV analgesics, they simply deaden all the nerves in the area so you don't feel shit.

Joe,

I hope all goes well. Last year our club donated all the proceeds from the MMG we hosted to the American Kidney Foundation. One of our members is a transplant survivor, and I know that all will turn out great for your sister.

It's those kind of foundations that make it possible for transplants to happen, and we are thinking about you, your family and especially her.

KMag

You are right, she has done quite well to make it this far. That is awesome!

You pick up all sorts of odd info at the pulmonologist office. Unfortunately, I have spent too much time in one of those offices lately.

Your sister will do great. Imagine all the possibilities now!
Stephanie

Luck and hope for you and your's.

If she's been dealing with CF for this long she's likely tough. That's good and will help her gut out the recovery. All the best.

A good friend of mine married a girl with CF, I remember seeing her after a treatment and how sad it was.

Will be praying for her. Prayer does wonders!!!

We are keeping her in our prayers. God Bless.

Well, just got word that she's finally out of surgery. Apparently it's a good sign when the surgeon walks into the waiting room with "a shit-faced grin" after all is said and done. Took bloody well long enough, though I suspect I'd be hard pressed to do an engine swap in 8 hours if it was necessary to keep the car running the whole time.

So, now we wait. She'll be in isolation for a day or two before we can actually get in to see her, and then of course we're looking a probably a month in the hospital before she can come home. Serious shit this is...

Somewhere in Tampa tonight a family is grieving that their son won't be coming home, but he didn't die for nothing.

Just had to throw out a car joke even at a time like this huh?

Seriously though, glad everything has worked out good so far and hope it continues to do the same.

modern medicine is insane, best wishes

Hope everthing works out.

Im really glad to hear everything is going good so far. Keep us updated.
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That's great news Joe, your sister sounds like a fighter!

That's fantastic. I wish her the best and for a quick recovery.

brew her a keg!

Make her a video! Then show us!

Hope she has a speedy recovery Joe, a month in a hospital has to suck.

Glad to hear she came out of the procedure well. We'll still keep her in our prayers.

Glad to hear she made it threw.

And this guy should be remembered. Did you meet the family?

They're fairly sensitive about meeting the donor family apparently. It's their choice if they want to see us, not the other way around. We really only got the very basics- male, 18 years old, head trauma resulting in death at around midnight wed/thurs. Kept the body alive on a machine until everything was ready in the OR, then parted him out. Kinda freaky...

Things are still fairly tense, but after being in an induced coma and on a respirator since Thursday evening, this afternoon they woke her up, removed the breathing tube, and she got to take her first breath unassisted on the new lungs. Apparently they work. Her O2 sat is just sitting there at 100%, which is territory her body hasn't seen in a decade. And even lying there unconscious in ICU with tubes and bandages everywhere, the goth complexion is gone and she actually has color- she's been pale as a ghost for years.

She's still in a boatload of pain so they're got her pretty well doped up to the point where coherence is a hit or miss proposition. Not sure how much she'll remember of all this afterwards. Still on a nasogastric tube as well since she can't really swallow (or even sit up for that matter), but for now, the fact that things haven't yet gone totally to shit is a good sign, I suppose.

hope all is well and a fast recovery i'll pray for her and your family


seth

i dont prey but ill morally support :)

Joe wishing ur sis a speedy and complete recovery. Great to hear the surgery went well and she's taking her first breaths, again! Lots of prayers for a full success

amazing suff. I hope she continues on to a full and speedy recovery.