Insurmountable obstacles, yet flickers of hope... (Jenna)

February 14^th, 2002

The next morning on Valentine’s Day, Mom was different. Her mental state was noticeably fuzzier. I fought against the thought that I might never have an intelligible conversation with her again, praying that it would be different. We were told that her liver enzymes had climbed so high that it was likely her only hope was a liver transplant. The liver is an amazing organ. It can come back and repair itself after suffering incredible damage. If the liver enzymes peaked and started to come down, then her liver would likely repair itself and be completely fine. If however the enzymes continued to climb, her liver would be destroyed completely. The enzymes were already 300 times the normal level.

The doctors were looking for possible solutions. Saskatoon does not perform liver transplants, so if that was the route we had to go, the only hope was to get her somewhere that did. Vancouver and Edmonton were the only places in western Canada. So, the doctors tried to transfer Mom to Edmonton, but there were no beds available. We were told Vancouver wouldn’t do transplants for someone who had attempted suicide. We were running out of options.

The doctor then made a decision that provided a way. He put her in ICU, even though she didn’t really need to be there yet, because then he could transfer her to the University of Alberta hospital in Edmonton. He told us there is a rule that hospitals could not refuse an ICU-to-ICU transfer, and he knew that if he waited until she needed ICU, she would be too unstable to transport. Praise God. Soon Mom was on an air ambulance to Edmonton, and the rest of us were driving there through the night with our good friend Wanda Groenewegen at the wheel.

February 15^th, 2002

We got to the U of A Emergency at around 2 am on Friday, February 15th. Mom was there, but we couldn’t see her yet. We camped out at the 24-hour Tim Horton’s across the street, exhausted, praying, waiting for morning or some news. Mom was finally in the place where she could receive the help she needed, but the battle was nowhere near over.

The next time I saw her, Mom was in ICU with tubes sticking out everywhere, machines beeping, and nurses monitoring her from a station that looked like an airplane cockpit. She was in a deep coma.

At this point her liver enzymes were at levels above 10,000… basically off the scale. Her INR (her blood value that measures her risk of bleeding) was about ten times normal, meaning that she could have very easily bled to death from a cut or minor trauma. They successfully reversed this state with blood products, but her liver was beyond hope. Her kidneys had also failed so she needed dialysis to clean her blood. All we could do was stand by her side, talking to her, praying for her.

Friday was full of meeting with doctors of all varieties and disciplines. There were the ICU doctors, the kidney doctors, the liver specialists, the internists,… I’m sure there were others. There was a wonderful chaplain who spent a lot of time with us.

Her only hope was transplantation, but there were still many hurdles to overcome to get there. She was not yet on the transplant list.

More and more people were showing up at the hospital… friends, family, pastors. We had so much support. I emailed Capernwray Bible school in England, where I had attended the year before to ask for prayer. Likely thousands of people around the world were praying.

I can’t even remember what happened over the next 24 hours, but the medical team told us straight up all of the challenges we were facing. First off, she had to make it onto the transplant list. Organs are valuable and scarce resources. People die waiting on transplant lists for years, so this decision would not be made lightly. We prayed and prayed.