Sometimes it’s hard to remember the good through all the bad.

Looking back at my family’s journey with my husband’s health battles, it is sometimes hard to remember the good times. There was so much pain and heartache and tough decisions and anger that the good sometimes is harder to recall.

In March of 2023, my husband ended up in a hospital in Birmingham, Alabama for what would end up being 2 months. This is nowhere close to home (we near Lake Tahoe, NV). He had previously had an open heart surgery plus some subsequent other heart procedures. We know that a lot of what was going on with him was heart related.

After tests we were told that his heart had damaged his liver causing cirrhosis and he would most likely need a liver transplant. My daughter and I flew out to Alabama to be with him and begin the process of figuring all this out. Luckily at this time my daughter had 2 weeks off for spring break and that gave me a buffer to figure out how my family needing to be in 2 different states was going to work.

Do you know how intense the transplant process is? I certainly had no idea. You have to go through every test under the sun, plus meet with multiple specialists talking about what things look like after the transplant. The pharmacist came into my husband’s hospital room to talk us about how the anti-rejection drugs can cause fertility issues and how our daughter shouldn’t be near them?!?! I was starting to feel a little overwhelmed, but just kept my head down and told myself I can handle it. That same day, in walk the transplant team…they said that it looks like he would actually need a liver, a kidney, and a heat transplant all at once. That is when I broke a little. I knew the odds of getting all three organs were slim to none.

Next was another round of tests, one being a liver biopsy. Astoundingly, the hepatologist came in with the results saying there wasn’t actually any cirrhosis and that the liver was just severely congested because of the heart issues. If they fix these heart issues the liver should decongest. So we were like ok, great, what does that mean.

In comes the heart surgeon that if Droopy the Dog and Sadness from Inside Out had a baby it would be him. He is no frills, which I was use to with doctors, but his exact words to us were “you are dying and we only have one bite as this apple.” He explained that because of the previous open heart surgery my husband wasn’t a candidate for another one, but his specialty was robotic heart surgery and they would go in the try to fix the problems and it would either work or good chance he would die.

I think I had an out of body experience right there in the middle of downtown Birmingham, Alabama with my husband in a hospital bed and my 13 year old daughter sitting next to me. So my husband is going to die or we do this risky heart surgery and he still might die? To be honest I remember wishing I could just run away. I didn’t want to deal with any of it. And I felt so incredibly alone. I have amazing friends, but it is such a different feeling of loneliness when it comes to situations like this that I don’t even know how to describe it.

Because we felt like there wasn’t another choice we agreed to try the robotic heart surgery. On the morning of surgery they came to get him around 4am. My daughter was sleeping on the vinyl hospital couch and I was in the chair. We followed them down and were in pre-op with him. As they were about to take him back to the OR my daughter fainted. Eyes rolled back in her head, fell straight back stiff as a board and all I remember is hearing how hard her head hit the ground. Everyone in pre-op rushed over. I remember the anesthesiologist saying “she has a pulse”. And I remember thinking “she better have an F’ing pulse!!!”. With a minor concussion, we said good luck to my husband and off he went.

Approximately 10 hours later, still in the waiting room, my daughter points out that it seems like if the surgery went well the doctors just come talk to the families where they are sitting and if it didn’t go well they bring them into this little cubicle in the corner of the waiting area.

I have always tried to prepare myself for bad things by “dress rehearsing” them in my head. This is totally a coping mechanism. (Just throwing in here that my father passed away from cancer when I was 16, so I was no stranger to “the worst case scenario”). I sat there thinking that if my husband didn’t make what do I do? Do my daughter and I just get on a plane and fly home?!?!? Who do I call? How do I make arrangements? So many thoughts. The surgeon finally came out…and took us to the little cubicle.

The surgeon said that he believes he was able to fix the heart problems, but that my husband wasn’t doing well. His blood pressure was not stable and they might have to put him on ECMO (which is a type of life support). In my head I realized he didn’t die on the table and all I started doing was praying that this isn’t how it ended.

He was intubated for several days. They were able to wake him up. He stayed in the ICU for weeks. My daughter stayed with us for 3 weeks total. In the ICU we witnessed several deaths and I decided this wasn’t a place I wanted my daughter to be hanging out, regardless of the strong desire for all of us to be together. I made arrangements with her school and the amazing help of friends back home so she could get back to her daily life. I flew her home and then flew back to Alabama. They say it takes a village and it really does. I don’t know what I would’ve done otherwise. I am so incredibly grateful to the friends who went above and beyond to help us.

This is one of those situations where there are no good options. All the options are F’ing gut wrenching, but as a mom I had to try to make the best decision I could without a crystal ball predicting the future.

The rest of this story is for another time, but reading this you probably, like me, think of how horrible it sounds and how awful an experience it was. And it definitely was, but now with the help of therapy I am trying to bring to the surface the good moments we had.

There were a handful of such incredible nurses that really made the biggest difference ever. They not only cared for my husband, but they gave me advice, told me to go for a walk, brought me a warm blanket, and just talked to me, helped me through this incredibly hard time.

The couple weeks leading up to the surgery, the three of us played countless games of Yahtzee, laughing and joking and also being super competitive. We may have been stuck in a hospital, far from home, but we found ways to still create some memories that I know my daughter and I can think back on that part fondly.

One of my running besties for years lives just outside of Birmingham and her and my other princess running friends were so incredible. Kristin repeatedly had my daughter and I over and fed us while she did our laundry. Her husband organized their church group to come over and bring us snacks so we had a big bag of food at the hospital that came in so clutch. Seeing these perfect strangers go out of their way for us was so incredible I don’t really even have words. I don’t think I could have made it through those two months in Birmingham without Kristin and everyone there.

Countless phone calls and text messages from friends making sure I was still putting one foot in front of another. Friends asking what, if anything they can do. It is not lost on me how lucky I am to have such amazing friends.

I’m trying (with the help of therapy) to reframe how I look back at the last couple years. And yes, they were fucking awful. BUT, I am also thankful for the small joys, the friendships, the village it took to get through this.

If you are caregiving and/or have a loved one who is terminally ill, know you are not alone. Seek help, reach out, lean on your village. You don’t have to do it all on your own, even though most of it will be. I hope you can find something in this that resonates with you. You can even reach out to me if you need.

Again, my therapist encourages me to write. So I’ve done a lot of writing since my husband passed away and I finally feel like I’m at a point where I can share more with you. I can’t tell you how thankful I am for so many of you. I had so many encouraging messages and prayers and I can’t believe that this little idea for this community I had 16 years ago has grown to be such an amazing part of my life. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

A small part of my big story as a 45 year old widow