Pre-transplant clinic

I had my first pre-transplant clinic appointment yesterday and it was very enlightening. Our center does not incorporate meeting the transplant surgeons into the evaluation process like other centers do. Therefore, I made a special request to meet one of the surgeons. He came by yesterday with one of his residents, and they explained the whole procedure to me. I already knew quite a bit of what they told me, but i really wanted to hear it from the horse's mouth, so to speak. So he answered my crazy freak out questions, which he actually had some good answers to, instead of just telling me not to worry about it like some people might have. These were my questions:

What happens if there is an earthquake?

He reassured me they would continue on despite an earthquake, and that the hospital is rated to withstand a 8.5 quake (at least that is the hope). How he actually knew that i am not sure, but maybe i am not the first person to ask this question.

The next question was spurred on by watching Boston Med this summer and learning how many things can go wrong, and the intricacy of getting the donor organs to the recipient.

What if something happens to the lungs on the way to the surgery?

He reassured me that if i was all prepped and my lungs out, they could keep me alive with the bi-pass machine (heart/lung machine) for up to a week, and if that happened I would be sky-rocketed to the top of the list, and they would find organs for me from all over the country). That made me feel MUCH better, honestly i know it seems outrageous, but if there are answers for even the most outrageous questions, then it really can't be that bad, right? RIGHT!

My last question was a Grey's anatomy question and a one from the recent headlines...

What happens if there is a shooter during the surgery?

He smiled and looked at me and my mom, and said if it was like the situation that just occurred at john's hopkins, then it would be my mom who would be the shooter, and he looked at her and we all kind of laughed. So he made me feel a lot better ;)

Not that i spent all my time worrying about these things, but I did have them swirl around my mind from time to time. After he answered my questions he shook me and my mom a bit with his next statement. He told us that they had denied an offer for lungs for me today. The lungs were not good enough and coming from a far location, indicating they had been passed up by others as well.
WOAH BABY! That means that I really am on the radar and they are looking out for me. You would think that maybe this made me feel disappointed? NO WAY. I have been kind of nervous that because there have been so few transplants lately that they would start taking lower quality lungs. But obviously this is not true. It made me feel even more confident in my team to keep my best interest in the forefront of their mind.

After the surgeons left, Dr Weill and the new fellow came in and Dr. Weill looked me in the eye and told me to "be ready". He thinks it is going to come soon. He mentioned they have been getting more offers than they have, and they also mentioned these things are cyclical, and therefore indicating it will pick up at some point. I am taking the fact that my name did pop up that it will be soon, but no one knows. But I honestly will say that I am thinking in the next month things might happen... it isn't wrong to believe my doctor is it? I know he isn't psychic and no one knows, but I want to think it will be soon. i want to think that I will get some relief of this massive amount of treatments and the mundane day to day life that we are living in. I want to believe it, so i am going to... and then see what happens....