Good Friday

Two minutes after Good Friday began, I was awakened by the vibrating of my phone against the nightstand a few inches from my head. Only an hour and a half before, I had hung up with Maria and gone to bed. Before I could fall asleep, though, I knew I needed to say a prayer. I recited the “Our Father” slowly to reflect on the words I was saying. I did this five times before asking for the same thing I’ve been asking for since the first ultrasounds of Noah revealed a heart defect.

I don’t know what made me say the “Our Father” five times more than I usually do. I don’t know why I didn’t procrastinate as usual in packing for the weekend. I don’t know why I couldn’t concentrate at work all day Thursday and kept browsing heart transplant websites. And I don’t know what made me want to make sure that Maria and I had some way of quickly notifying each other when a heart became available. But for all those things, I’m glad I did them. For that 12:02 a.m. phone call on Good Friday was the answer to my prayers.

The caller was Noah’s surgeon’s nurse practitioner phoning to say that they had found a possible heart match for Noah. As she explained that the wheels were in motion for procuring the heart, my own wheels started to turn. Upon hanging up with her, I made four unanswered calls to Maria and to the Ronald McDonald House. I sent the text message “Now”, which was the code word we agreed upon earlier to mean go to the hospital. The I phoned my dad and asked him once more out of the blue if he could watch Autumn. Finally, Maria called me back and I was able to give her the news. She sounded startled so I reminded her that this was good.

A little over an hour later, I was on my way to meet Maria and Noah at the hospital. Noah’s nurse and respiratory therapist helped us be able to hold Noah, even with the ventilator in, until 7:00 a.m. At that time we left Noah to get some breakfast. All morning we waited for confirmation that the heart was a match and, if so, news of when the surgery might take place. We learned that the heart was coming from New York and so we worried about the weather there. At 10:00 a.m., Noah’s nurse told us that she had orders to prepare him for surgery at 11:00 a.m. When Noah was put on the transplant list, we were told that we should expect to wait two to four months for a heart. Now, after only three days on the transplant list, we knew that we had a match.

It wasn’t until 2:30 p.m. that we signed the consent forms and left Noah to get some rest at the Ronald McDonald House. Maria had only gotten an hour of sleep through the night and I had managed about three hours of sleep. At 3:30 p.m. I got a call from an O.R. nurse saying that Noah was there and the surgery had begun. At 5:30 p.m. I got another call from the same nurse saying that the new heart was being sewn in. Then around 7:30 p.m. we got the call from Noah’s surgeon’s nurse practitioner saying that the surgery was over and we could visit him in an hour and a half.

Shortly after 10:00 p.m. we were cleared to go back to see Noah. He was in the same room in the PICU that he was sent to after his first surgery. He was a little bruised and swollen and his chest was still open, but he looked good to us. Because it was a hectic night in the PICU, I was only able to kiss Noah’s head and stroke his hair a few times before we were asked to step out. As I write shortly after a new day has begun, all the reports I’ve gotten about Noah have been good. We know that there will be bumps in the road but right now it seems that my prayer was answered.

I ask you to pray for a speedy recovery for Noah. I also ask that you pray for the soul that gave his or her heart to Noah and for the family of the donor. Maria and I will always be grateful for them giving our son a chance to live.