My trip home for Halloween :)

This weekend I got to go home and spend a few days with my sweet children and husband and celebrate with them in this fun season.  While Halloween was never a big deal in my house growing up or in Mitchell's, we did always get to dress up as something fun ( not scary) and go trick or treating. While we don't do any of the other thing on Halloween, we do keep candy at the house and go around to our neighbors and collect candy from them. But this year there was just no way for me to be home on Halloween in time to trick-or-treat with the kids so I did some digging and rearranging and worked it out so I could come do Halloween early.

The kids school had a storybook character day on Friday and my little babies got to be Doc McStuffins and Jake from Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  And in case you're wondering yes, they were super super cute!!

I got home late Thursday night and they were excited to see me when they woke up Friday, we had a breakfast at home and got dressed in our costumes and headed to school.  I drop them in their classes and checked in at the desk then I spend the morning going back-and-forth between their rooms taking pictures of them with their friends and helping corral them into one from one place to another. They both did so well for parading around the school for the older kids and many parents and enjoyed the fall festival type activities they had back in their classroom. 

Here are some pictures from the fun day

A long list of requirements....

I really have no idea what comes to mind when people hear the sentence "She needs a double lung transplant". Mainly because I was too young to remember what I thought, if I even knew what it meant, the first time I heard it. Having my mom be a 'transplant recipient' has been just 'part of our life' for most of my life. But I'm pretty sure that very few of them have any realistic idea what all it entails...so I'm going to tell you.

Today, I'm going to give you the basic details of what a lung transplant means, requires, looks like, etc in someone's life. There are 3 'phases' of lung transplant: Pre, Surgery, and Post. 

Pre-Transplant is the phase from the time you are diagnosed with a terminal lung disease up until you actually get a transplant. It can last days, months or years, depending on the condition. Some people (like CF patients) may know for many years that they'll likely need a transplant 'some day' and will be seen by pulmonologists routinely to track their lung disease. Some people begin having shortness of breath and can take years to go down to the point of needing to pursue transplant. Others have sudden drop in lung function from their lung disease, and very suddenly need a transplant.

The pre-transplant phase involves applying to a transplant program, with the goal of being accepted for evaluation. Once accepted there are 5-10 days worth of testing they have to do. They basically check EVERY other part of your body to make sure that you can survive the surgery and tolerate the medications afterword. Heart caths, kidney function tests, multiple esophagus tests, blood tests, EKGs, liver function tests and multiple cancer screenings, just to name a few. Once those are done, and reviewed, they either accept or reject you from the program.

If accepted there are a dozen or so requirements to meet before being transplanted. The most insane of those is relocating to less than 30 minutes from the hospital that will be performing the surgery. Since most people don't live within 30 minutes of the 20 or so transplant centers in the country, many patients have to do that. (LIKE US!) The rest are just tedious, daily things. The first of which is Pulmonary Rehab. Pulmonary Rehab is 3 hours a day, including 20 minutes of walking, 20 minutes of biking, 20 minutes of weights and 45 minutes of floor exercises, 5-6 days a week. The second is 'education'. They have lectures, and classes daily or weekly to prepare you for the surgery, the hospital stay and life after transplant. The third is routine monitoring of your health with regular blood tests, and doctor visits. 

Life becomes about the getting to transplant. Its all consuming and enormous and seems like it will never end, but it does. This part ends, and life gets back to being 'life' instead of being 'pre-transplant phase'.

And the rest, I'll tell you about next time!

Another update!

We are starting our 5th week of this Pre-listing journey. So far the schedule this week includes 6 days of PR, which will be very exhausting for mom, and a swallow test on Thursday. (Nothing that could derail us, just a pre-surgery look to have on file for comparison after transplant).
We are so thankful for all of you who continue to pray for and encourage us!! We don't know what we would do without the great blessing of Good friends that The Lord has given us!
As of now, mom should finish her mandatory 23 days of PR on Nov 1st. And we hope to be listed the middle to end of next week. Her coordinator is anxious to get her listed and is going to push to get it done a couple days early, so please pray with us that, if that's the Lord's will, that He will work it out for us!

2 Weeks Down!

Mom is currently finishing up Pulmonary Rehab, so I'm going to take the opportunity to update you all!
To this point, mom has completed 9 days of pulmonary rehab, had 2 days of clinic (days in the hospital, with meetings with drs), 2 addition mornings of tests, and 3 mornings of lectures.
She has a colonoscopy Friday at 1, and they've decided to redo her heart catherization next week.

We are on pace to get to her 23 days of rehab done on October 31st. And her coordinator feels confident that she'll be listed immediately! Yay!
We have lectures every afternoon for the next 3 weeks, in addition to PR, and several morning appts in the hospital.
Mom is feeling tired, and occasionally discouraged, but we're doing great!
Thank you all for your continued prayer and support!

Feels like Home

This morning as I drove around Durham, a peace came over me. This is 'home' now. No, its not permanent, and no, its not where my husband is, and no, its not where my kids are, but for the next several months, this little town is 'home'.

This place with multiple interstates, expressways and highways, all merging and/or intersecting each other at seemingly random intervals, never going north, south, east or west, but twisting and turning in mind-numbing ways. No one could ever accuse this place of being set up on a grid! ha! This place of "Main Street USA" storefronts, and a terrible inconsistency of street signs. (Seriously, I regularly search intersections for street sign where they do not exist or are hidden behind a tree/bush/other ridiculously random piece of nature). This place where I've never desired to go to, much less live in. This place is home.

And do you want to know the irony?

This place feels like home.


We arrived a few days ago, not knowing much about the place we were staying. Having seen pictures, I was confident it was plenty good enough, but never would have imagined how amazingly comfortable we would feel in this beautiful home. I'll do a post about the house at a later date, but suffices to say, its AMAZING, and totally a "God Thing".

Anyway, back to the point. I was driving down the road, in this unfamiliar place, expecting to feel lost, disconnected, homesick and sad, when I noticed a building as I passed it. It is (what I assume to be) a bottling/manufacturing plant for CocaCola. That might not mean much to most people, but my Granddaddy worked at Coke for over 35 years, retired from there in the 80s, and he passed away just 6 months after my mom's first transplant.  And here we are in a strange place for a very specific reason. To get my mom a SECOND lung transplant. It was as if the Holy Spirit whispered to my heart as I recognized that logo on the side of the building, "This is where you're supposed to be. You're right where I want you, and I want you to feel at home."

I don't know if our loved ones can see us from Heaven, my personal belief is that they have far better things to do in the presence of God than to worry about me, but at that moment, it was almost like my Granddaddy was in the seat beside me.

God continues to show Himself and His plan to us as we make this journey, and I just wanted to share that particular one with you all.

I'll be back-dating some posts on here in the coming days of things that have gone on with the Pearsons this year, as well as a few detailed posts about Mom and her journey for those of you who may not know what all is going on. And I'll continue to post about our adventure here in Durham, over and above what we post on the FB page.

Day 1 of Pulmonary Rehab

Just dropped Mom off for her first day of pulmonary rehab. She's not exactly 'excited' but she's there! She'll be doing 45 minutes of floor exercises (stretching, flexibility, and some ankle/wrist weights), followed by 20 minutes of walking, 20-30 minutes of biking and them 20-30 minutes of weight lifting. Please join me in praying that she leaves there feeling encouraged and not discouraged!

We made it to Durham!

We have arrived, unloaded the car, had dinner and unpacked! the home is beautiful and we are so thankful for it. Just minutes from the hospital, I would be surprised if it was further than a mile. Headed to bed, hoping to make it to church tomorrow.
The battery on the rental car died after we got here, which was weird. Probably will have to make a trip to the Raleigh airport tomorrow to get it changed out.
And my baby boy is not feeling well back at home. Daddy is a trooper though, and on his first night solo, he played Dr very well, with medicines, humidifiers, propped up sleeping and staying in Bman's room until he fell asleep. Please pray he feels better soon!!!