I wake. I look at the clock on the shelf beside my bed. It’s around 7:20 AM. I groan and get up. I start to get dressed for another day of telework. I’ve been doing this for the better part of the last four years, with the last two and half from the “office” in the front part of our RV where we live full-time. I feel a little melancholy. The previous day marked one year since we have been “trapped” in Dallas, TX waiting for a liver transplant. My melancholy starts to fade as I realize it is Nov 1st, the first day of my favorite month. My phone rings. I look to where it is laying on the end of the bed. The caller ID says DALLAS METHODIST LIVER CENTER. I don’t get excited. I get calls from them from time to time dealing with various health related issues to my liver. It has never been THE CALL. The ringing doesn’t wake a slumbering Michelle. I answer the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hello, is this Mr. Lovelace?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Mr. Lovelace, this is Mary from the transplant center. We have a possible candidate liver offer for you. It is at another transplant center but might not be viable for the patient ahead of you on the transplant list. We would like you to come down to the hospital for a COVID-19 test in case the liver becomes available to you.”

OMG! Is this THE CALL? I shake Michelle’s leg and when she groggily opens her eyes I point to the phone. She gets me immediately and comes fully awake.

“OK, I’ll head straight down!”

“Please realize that this not set in stone but we want you to be ready just in case. After your test you can go home and wait by the phone. We’ll call you.”

I remember that we opted in to a part of the transplant program that can offer you livers earmarked from other patients in case it doesn’t work out at the last minute. We qualify for this because we only live 30 minutes from the hospital.

“OK, I understand. Heading down there now.”

I hang up the phone and give Michelle the news. I don’t think she even hears the caveats that go along with THE CALL. She is convinced I am getting a new liver today. I start to get real excited and then tell myself, manage your expectations. Holy shit! I’m getting a new liver today! Manage them better than that. OK, I’m possibly getting…fuck it! I’m getting a new liver today! I realize I am not manager material. We run around getting ready as fast as we can. Feed the dogs, make sure our go bags are still in the Jeep. Why is everything taking so long? Finally get our asses in the Jeep to head to the hospital.

Michelle just offered to drive for the third time. I turn her down and yell at the guy in front of me. “Green means go, moron!” Morning rush hour traffic in the DFW area is turning our normal 20-30 minute drive to the hospital into a much longer commute. While I drive I constantly cycle through a range of emotions from the high of a possible liver transplant to the low of thinking it isn’t going to happen. The better part of this hour is on a repeating cycle.

On the third pass through the parking garage we finally find a spot on the 374th floor. We make our way to the outpatient admitting area. I meet with a representative that sets up my COVID-19 test, slaps a wrist band on me and ushers me to the lab, Michelle following behind. In the lab, I wait a bit and text my family and friends about what is going on. I also text my boss to let him know the skinny so he can put me on sick leave. I get called back to a testing room. I’ve taken numerous home COVID tests, but I never have had one administered to me before. The lady breaks out a swab and I cringe. I’ve heard stories of medical personnel shoving those swabs way up your nose. As she puts the swab in, I’m shocked to see she only twirls it around just inside my right nostril and not all the way up in my medula oblongota like I thought she would. Hell, I pushed it farther up than that doing the self-administered ones. That’s it. All there is to do. I go back to the lab waiting room where Michelle is. Seems like we should be doing something else. I know Mary told me to go back home, but I feel like I should be close by. Michelle asks if I want to go get breakfast. I do. Wait, can I even eat if I might have surgery today? Michelle calls the transplant center to ask that question. She doesn’t make it past the receptionist and they say they’ll get someone to call her back. After 15 mins of waiting I say screw it, I’m hungry. We leave and head back to the Jeep.

We pull into an IHOP about 15 minutes away from the hospital in Northern Dallas. It’s a strange looking IHOP. Almost like one of those dining cars with a narrow seating area and the kitchen right up front when you walk in. It’s charming. We order breakfast (egg and sausage burrito for me)and try to calm our nerves. Breakfast arrives and we eat while playing Yahtzee against each other on our phones. I win two games, Michelle wins one. I constantly check the MY CHART app on my phone to see if the COVID test results are back yet. No dice. Also no phone call back from the transplant center. We decide to go home.

We drive home.

I drop Michelle off at the rig and drive over to my sister’s house. Nobody is home. I have a key and open the door. I leave a set of my rig keys at her house so if this goes down today she can come get the dogs and bring them over to her house after she gets off of work. While I am there I text everyone again to let them know we are on hot standby. I head back over to the rig and help Michelle with some chores for getting things ready to be closed up at the site if this thing goes down today. I’m exhausted. I’ve thought too much, I’ve felt too much, coupled with still recovering from the previous week’s cancer surgery, I can barely keep my eyes open. I tell Michelle I am going to lay down for a bit which is code for NAP TIME. I lay down on the bed fiddling with my phone for a bit before sleep takes me. I hear Michelle’s phone ring and her answer it in the front room. She talks for a bit them comes in to let me know that was the transplant center calling her back. No need to take any further preps before surgery, just be close to the phone. Due to HIPPA rules about patient privacy they can’t say much about what is happening with the candidate liver other than to hint that the donor might not be deceased yet. Not sure how to feel about hoping for someone else to die so that I can live. Decide not to process it and slip off to sleep.

I wake to the sound of my phone ringing around 1:30 PM. The caller ID says GEHA which is my medical insurance. I take the call. Turns out it is totally not related to the possible liver transplant. It’s a nurse that calls me from time to time to check on my progress and to make sure they are handling things properly. She is as shocked to hear about the possible liver transplant as I was. We talk for a bit and then I hang up. I inform Michelle who has been standing over me the whole time that it wasn’t THE CALL. I slip back into sleep.

Sleep.

I briefly wake when Finn gets up on the bed and snuggles up to me. Feels like he knows something is up and is comforting me. I pet him for a few minutes then fall back to sleep.

More sleep. I wake just before 5:00 PM. I know I was dreaming but I can’t remember them. I check the MY CHART app on my phone. COVID-19 test came back negative. Always a good thing.

I get my lazy ass out of bed. I go help Michelle with some more chores outside the rig. I think about how waiting on a phone call is driving my crazy. I think about going back to sleep. I resist the urge. I take down the Halloween decorations. I look at my phone willing it to ring. It doesn’t.

I remember I have a Zoom Chat today at 6:30 with hikers that are Patrons of a YouTube Channel called Homemade Wanderlust. The channel is owned by Dixie, a professional hiker, very informative, and all around great girl. We have become somewhat friends over the past few years and she has always been supportive of my hiking efforts while sick. She is hosting the chat today and I am excited about sharing the news of a possible liver transplant with her and all my other hiker friends. I log in about ten minutes early to the Zoom Chat to make sure all my shit is working right. There are several others also logged in ahead of time. About five minutes before the official chat is supposed to start, my phone rings. METHODIST LIVER CENTER on the caller ID. I answer and it is Mary but I can’t hear her because of the people on the Zoom Chat. Where is that mute button? I can’t find it. Hell, I just close Zoom all together but it doesn’t close, it just goes into the background with full audio still being broadcast. Shit! I get up and walk outside the rig apologizing to Mary. She actually apologizes to me for just now getting back to me. I tell her no worries. She informs me that the candidate liver ended up being used by the other transplant center and we are off hot standby. Back to the waiting game. I thank her and disconnect the call. I stare at the rig and wonder if I’ll ever get back on the road. Michelle comes out and I give her the news. She is devastated but give me a hug and tells me she is sorry. She goes in the bedroom for a bit to get it together. I think about bailing on the Zoom Chat but when I sit back down in front of the computer I see that Dixie is on now and everyone is chatting. I decide to stick it out for now. I don’t say much, just follow the conversation.

While following the conversation on Zoom, I also send out a group text informing family and friends that operation liver replacement has been scrubbed. I get a lot of encouraging responses. It helps. I am disappointed but glad to have experienced the process. Now I know for sure that my case is near the top of the priority list and being worked on. I feel a little better and start participating more in the Zoom Chat. I show everyone a picture of a painting Michelle bought me that shows a girl sitting on a rock outcrop in the mountains. We all agree that the girl in the painting looks like Dixie. She asks me how my medical issues are going. I spend the next 20 minutes hijacking her chat to talk about the days events. More encouraging words from my hiker friends. It feels good. I excuse myself from the chat to go talk to Michelle about dinner. We decide to order Sushi for delivery. I get back on the chat while waiting.

I see on my Uber Eats map that the delivery driver is in the RV park and lost as is usually the case for food deliveries here. The person that made the site numbering system for this park was obviously smoking crystal meth at the time. I take my flashlight and through a combination of text messages and signaling like an airport ground team bringing a 747 to the gate, I get our food. Michelle and I split it up and she takes hers to the bedroom to eat it while watching her shows. I take mine to the table and make the people on the Zoom Chat watch me eat it. I’m sure plenty of them turned off my video. I decide to make a FB post about the day’s events. I get more encouraging words. Thank you.

The Zoom Chat is still going strong. They usually last several more hours. I can’t hang. I’m exhausted. I say good-bye to everyone and end the call. I go through the nightly routine of setting up fans for the dogs, putting up leftovers, locking the doors, and turning out lights. I go to the bedroom. Michelle asks me how I am doing. I tell her it sucks that I got my hopes up but that I am all right. I still feel like it is going to happen soon. She agrees. We watch a couple of episodes of The Ranch on Netflix. How did I not see this show when it was first out? It’s a dramedy and it is excellent. Michelle decides she is going to sleep. As tired as I am, I can’t fall asleep yet. Guess there is still some residual adrenalin coursing around through my veins.

I decide to watch some old episodes of the early 2000’s show 24 on Hulu. Elisha Cuthbert acts in The Ranch. She is all grown up now but it reminds me of her younger years when she played Jack Bauer’s daughter. I start watching Season 2 which I still think was the best one. It brings back memories of me binging this show on demand in our apartment in California. It was probably the first time I binged a show before Netflix hit the scene. As I watch the seconds tick off the screen on the current episode, I think just one more, then decide no, I need to get some sleep.

I still can’t go right to sleep so I put my earbuds in and listen to my current audiobook. I set a sleep timer for one hour. I’m listening to a book called The Trail. It is a fictional tale about a young guy hiking the John Muir trail with the elderly friend of his late father. The friend has cancer and wants to complete the trail before he dies. The tale is fictional but I can detect sections of personal experience from the author. I like this because it is what I did when I wrote Sawyer’s Run and The Last Hike. So far it’s the only other author I’ve discovered who’s done the same. Somewhere in the tale I drift to sleep.

Sleep and dreams.

More sleep. More dreams.

I wake up to a full bladder calling. I get up and go to the bathroom. Finn is laying on the floor at the bottom of the bed. On my way back to bed, I bend down and give him a few pats. I get back in bed. A few minutes later, Finn jumps on the bed and comes to cuddle with me. The look on his face tells me he knows I had a long day and he is there for my comfort. I wrap my arm around him and fall back to sleep.

I wake up to another call from a full bladder. Getting old sucks. Finn is still here. I extract myself carefully and go take care of business. On the way back I check on Sawyer who is snoring comfortably on the couch. I climb back in bed and next to Finn. I can’t go back to sleep. I remember my dreams. I was a CTU agent that also owned a bar called The Wet Spot. It’s a bar I’ve wanted to open since my 20’s. It was one of those dream sequences where even if you wake up, once you go back to sleep, you pick up where you left off. These don’t happen that often for me. I had to navigate the life of fighting terrorism while still slinging drinks at the bar. Sounds like a terrible dramedy. Not like The Ranch at all. I get the idea for this blog post. I spend the next part of the hour thinking bout things to write, knowing I’ll forget half of them. I drift back to sleep and don’t dream.

More dreamless sleep. Just before six, I wake again needing to take another wicked pissah. Damn it! Finn has moved to the bottom of the bed. I take care of business again.

Back in bed, I know I am up for the day. This is usually the time that I read the news on my phone and think about things I need to get done for the day. I get a message from a former co-worker and still friend. She read my post on FB. She knows someone who died over the weekend and is an organ doner. Is there anything she can do to get me their liver? I’m in the middle of composing a long reply telling her it doesn’t really work that way when the point becomes moot. She sends another message saying he was blood type A+. Not compatible with my O+ blood type anyway. I inform her and thank her so very much for thinking of me. I think some more about the fact that someone has to die for me to live and still don’t know exactly how to feel about that. I think I am fortunate to have family and friends that have supported me through this whole thing…

BEEP…BOP…BEEP…BOP…BEEP…BOOP

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