On Monday evening at about 6:40pm, my Liver Transplant Coordinator, Val, rang me. I had a Clinic appointment at the hospital the next morning, so I thought she was ringing to ask me to bring something in, or come in at a different time. She said "we think we've got you a liver!". I answered quite normally, responding to her request to go into the hospital within the hour that I would, and hung up the phone. The moment I hung it up, I started shaking and hyperventilating. This was it, I wasn't prepared, I hadn't finished packing my bag, my files weren't all in order, I wasn't ready to die.
I rang Ivor, who had only just come back from a weekend skiing (only his second weekend away since I got sick in March), who jumped in his car to drive over and pick me up to take me into hospital. I rang my Mother, who when I first said that Val rang, and I had to go into hospital, didn't click that "THIS WAS IT" - then she started shaking too. It was already organised that Kylie would be called and do a big ring-around on the list of people to contact when I was called, so they started doing this, while I got ready and went into 7B.
It was exciting and scary. I knew that it was quite possibly the last night I would be alive, and that was scary. I rang my friend Jo in Wellington, while I was in the car being driven in, so that I could thank her for being such a great friend, and to say goodbye if I didn't make it. Once I was in 7B, it was exciting to see the nurses, who were all really hoping that it would work. I had to have the normal prelims like x-rays and enemas. The team were still checking the liver too, to see if we were able to go ahead.
Finally, after lying in bed awake all night, with my family there till late, and my Mother there all night, it was time to go to Theatre. Ivor had come back at about 4:00am, and once it was time to go, he and my Mother accompanied me, my Teddy and the transfer nurses down to Level 2 for Theatre. Once I was there, it was time to say goodbye. I was pushed through those doors to Theatre 7, and around the corner while still waving to them, thinking is this the last time I will ever see them, and they told me afterwards that they were thinking the same, was that the last time they would see me?