We got call #2!

The end to another exciting day

Matt and I heard a few coughs through the night last night coming from Carter’s room. When he woke up this morning, he had a slight runny nose. We were thinking we’d call UCLA and tell them, when the phone rang at 7am and it was them! The woman said, “Is this Carter Kipp’s mom?” I said, “Yes, you have a liver, don’t you?!” Just total Murphy’s Law. Why do we only get calls on days like today?!! I explained how Carter was doing and she said they’d probably still have him come in. Carter was a back-up position and it was a split liver (which always makes it more possible for a false alarm because they don’t know if it can be split or if it would work for the recipient at all). All livers are different and they don’t know until the surgical team literally sees it in the donor’s body.

We got up to UCLA around 9:30am. It was surreal to go to admissions and say, “Carter Kipp is here for a liver transplant.” We had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last time we’d say those words. In fact, Matt and I were so calm the whole way up because we were pretty certain today was not Carter’s day, but you never know. We waited for about an hour, and then went upstairs and waited for another two hours. While we were waiting, we saw my friend’s husband who is on the transplant team. It’s so nice to see a familiar face and get his perception on it all. He was already up to speed on what was happening with Carter and knew more information than we knew. Then, we saw one of the surgeons who came over to talk to us and he had already heard about Carter’s runny nose. So, it’s nice to know the team communicates very well. Then, the main doctor we interface with came to give Carter an evaluation before having us go through the process of getting fully admitted into a hospital room, etc. She listened to Carter and thought he sounded clear, but she took off his mask and saw a clear runny nose. We had told her he had coughed a few times since we had been waiting as well. She said she’d rather not risk it, and that this would not be the only call for Carter. They are pretty confident Carter will get more calls now that our status on the list has increased. Also, she had told us Carter was in the #3 spot to receive the liver today, so it wasn’t as likely he would get it. We went over to the clinic next door so they could get blood work on Carter for the day, and finally got back on the road around 3pm.

Matt and I figure we are just easing ourselves into this liver transplant surgery process. Each time we get a little further along. Hopefully, we won’t have more false alarms, but we are sort of expecting them. And hopefully, Carter shakes whatever he has developed in the next couple days!! Bennett told us today he is already feeling better (even though he still sounds pretty congested). And just to be safe, he is having a sleep-over at Grammy’s again tonight.