Читать книгу Get me to 21 - Gabi Lowe - Страница 7

Keurboomstrand

I am in a restless, dream-filled sleep when my befuddled brain hears the distant sound of my cellphone ringing. It’s unusual for me to sleep this late. Sleep-induced fog turns to high alert, nerve endings flash hot and my heart starts thumping. I grab for the phone before I’ve even remembered where I am.

For seven months I’ve been hot-wired to this phone, every cell in my body straining and waiting for it to ring. I take it with me to the toilet, to the kitchen, to do the grocery shopping … or simply to walk down the passage to check in on Jenna, my 20-year-old daughter. I listen for it constantly, awake or asleep, and I jump involuntarily every time it rings, my heart in my throat.

And while waiting, I barely leave Jenna’s side. I barely leave our suburb. I have certainly not left Cape Town. But now, today, I am not at home. I am not there to sit on the edge of Jenna’s bed, to check her pump, to mix fresh medication for the day; to stroke her hair, make her tea and calm her. I’m not there to check the colour of her lips and the nuances of her energy levels.

I am not there.

I am not at home when the call finally comes.

Instead I am six hours away up the east coast in Keurboomstrand, a tiny village just outside Plettenberg Bay, with my younger daughter, Kristi. Yesterday I found my first-ever pansy shell in the shallow waters of Keurbooms beach and proclaimed with a hopeful heart that this might just be a sign. Last night I did something totally out of character: I ate half a weed brownie. Why? What was I thinking? There seemed to be such good reasons at the time and yet the minute I’d done it I couldn’t remember any of them. I became paranoid and fearful. I’d had a strong feeling I should pack my bags. But I dismissed the idea. I was just being paranoid, right? Had I lost my mind? What on earth was I doing? Such a damn stupid thing to have eaten that cookie at such a vulnerable time. Feeling highly anxious, I had gone straight to bed so I could sleep it off.

Now half-awake, groggy, my head aching and wracked with nausea from the stupid brownie, I answer the phone.

“Hello? Gabs? Gabs, are you awake?” It’s Stuart, but he sounds different, apprehensive, excited and afraid. A pause … a deep breath. “Gabs, we’ve got lungs. Angela just phoned. It’s happened, Gabs. We’ve got lungs for Jen.”

Thick, hot, sticky adrenaline floods my body, my knees are weak, my heart squeezes, and my stomach turns to water. For 200 days we’ve planned, waited for and imagined this moment, right down to the last detail, but right now I can’t think straight. My brain is exploding.

Stuart’s voice cuts through my shock. “Gabs!” Then more gently and soothingly, “Gabs, get Kristi, pack and get on a plane to Johannesburg, now. We’ll meet you there in about four hours. I must get off the phone to make the other calls we planned, but get on a plane … fast. I’ll stay in touch. I love you.”

This is not how I imagined I’d feel, an all-consuming flood of elation and terrible dread at the same time. It’s an unimaginable feeling. The realisation that this is it. Jenna’s only hope, her chance at life has arrived. But it’s not supposed to be like this. I am supposed to be with her, and with Stuart. We should all be at home together. I am supposed to be calm. But, no matter where I am, this is it. Operation O2 has kicked into action.

I throw open the bedroom door and run down the passage, cold tiles braising the soles of my feet, shouting breathlessly, “Kristi, Kristi! We got the call, we got the call … Kristi, we’ve got lungs!”

Hungover teenagers emerge from their bedrooms, staring at me wide-eyed. Kristi, my 17-year-old daughter, runs from her bedroom as pale as a ghost, eyes wide with shock. My inner lioness kicks into action. “Kristi, pack your stuff. We’re leaving for the airport in 10 minutes; 10 minutes, that’s all we’ve got, okay, my love? Go!”

I run back to my bedroom and call my lifelong friend Jillie. No two people are better equipped to get us on a flight to Johannesburg immediately than Ian and Jillie. They live in Plett, they know everyone, they have influence, they love us. More importantly, they love Jenna. Ian and Jillie are Jen’s godparents. They will get us on a flight. My hands are shaking so much I can barely tap the numbers on my phone. I feel as if I’m hovering above my own body. I force myself to breathe large lungfuls of air. All signs of brain fog are gone.

“Jillie?” I can barely recognise my own voice. “Jillie, we got the call. We have lungs. I need your help. We have a donor for Jenna. Kristi and I have to get to Johannesburg, now.”

Silence. And then, “I’ll call you back.”

I’m barefoot in my pyjamas, cupboard door wide open, scooping handfuls of clothing into my bag with one hand, my cellphone in the other. I stare at it in disbelief. Did Jillie really just put the phone down? Instantly it rings.

“Okay, I can breathe now. Gabs, we will get you on a plane. Don’t worry, we will get you on a plane. I’m calling Ian. You and Kristi just pack. Ian will sort the flights and I will fetch you now. It will take me 10 minutes to get to you. Be ready, okay? Breathe, my friend, breathe.”

Twelve minutes later Jillie’s car crunches up the dirt road outside. I throw my car keys and the house keys at Kristi’s stunned group of teenage friends. “Kids, I need you to pack up, clean up the house and lock up. And you’re going to have to drive my car and the trailer back to Cape Town. I’m sorry. But we have to leave now. Be careful and be safe.” Reggie, Kristi’s boyfriend, and Dean have literally only just got their driver’s licences. And all of them have just spent 10 days partying hard at Matric Rage. I’m concerned about whether they are up to the task, but there is no choice; they are going to have to step up and take charge.

Fifteen minutes after the first phone call from Stuart we are speeding along the Garden Route highway towards George airport, hazard lights flashing. Jillie is at the wheel, I am in the passenger seat, willing the car to go faster, and Kristi, now a whiter shade of pale, sits in shocked silence on the back seat.

Cape Town: Wednesday, 10th December 2014, 9:10 am

As usual for this time of day, Jenna is fast asleep. Stuart is in his office, which is on our property at home, outside the main house, going about his normal working day.

Jenna’s cellphone rings but she doesn’t take the call. Of course, she can’t take the call. She is now at stage IV of her illness, and so oxygen deprived that she sleeps for a large part of the day and is hard to wake up. But on this day something makes her stir. The call cuts off before she gets to it, but almost immediately the landline down the passage starts to ring. Queen, as caring and regal as her name suggests, has been helping me as Jenna’s nurse aide for nearly a year now. Close by in the kitchen, she picks up the call. It’s Angela, regional transplant co-ordinator from Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg. Queen’s pace quickens as she takes the phone outside to Stuart in his office. He is on a call to a client, but Queen thrusts the phone at him with an unusual sense of urgency.

“Hello, Stuart? It’s Angela from Milpark Hospital. How fast can you get Jenna to Johannesburg? We’ve got lungs. We have a match. Stuart, we have lungs for Jenna.”

Down the passage behind a closed door Jenna, our beautiful 20-year-old daughter, waits. Normally she never stirs much before lunchtime, but on this day something is different. She intuitively knows. She sits up slowly in her bed in the dark, bedroom blinds still drawn, and waits.

“We will make a plan. We will get there, Angela, we will get there. How long do we have?” Heart pounding, Stuart turns to Brandon, his business partner, and Queen, who is waiting expectantly. “Brandon, Queen … this is it. We have a green light for Operation O2, and Gabs isn’t here. I need your help.”

He picks up a stapled document sitting at the top of his in-tray. It is three pages long and marked boldly “Operation O2”. Five days earlier, the day I left for Keurboomstrand with Kristi, I had printed out a fresh copy and Stuart and I had gone through it carefully together. When the call you have been waiting for so many months for finally comes, your mind can temporarily leave. He is grateful for our military preparedness and follows the instructions word for word. We have plotted it carefully and fastidiously:

“Operation O2”

	To do	Action	Status
1	New Discovery authorisation numbers	Gabi	Done
2	Copy of all IDs plus Lizzie’s for Sue J	Gabi	Done
3	Create phone tree for Mary B and Sue J	Gabi	Done
4	Dry run to ExecuJet Cape Town	Stu/Steve	Done
5	Pack medication bag and spare meds	Gabs/Lizzie	Done
6	Pack a hospital bag: PJs, toiletries etc.	Gabs	Done
7	Buy emergency car lights	Stu

	When the call comes
1	Call nurse Lizzie Brierley (Liz calls Queen)	Gabi
2	Where is Kristi? Find her, get her home	Stuart
3	Call Mary and Sue: airport lift to come to us	Gabi
4	Phone pilots: • Larry Beamish • Gunther Grobers • Garreth Gill • Ryan Dassonville • Ampie Steynberg • Jonathan Ackerman	Stuart
5	Discovery to activate authorisation numbers	Gabi
6	Call Raffaella Ruttell at Discovery Health	Gabi
7	Call Alison Paynter at Discovery	Gabi
8	Lanseria Helicopter: Disco 911 0860 999 911	Stu
9	Lanseria ground crew: Carlene Morrison	Stu
10	Call Prof. Wilcox	Stu
11	Call house-sitter for Bertha Ave to look after house and dogs	Stu
12	Pack Chase and battery for Chase	Stu
13	Pack Oxy-Jen and all portable oxygen, plus additional cylinders for plane	Gabi
14	Pack all bags and oral drugs (complete green bag 80% packed in drug den)	Gabi
15	Pack pesonal belongings, pyjamas, toiletries, clothes	Gabi/Stu/Kristi
16	Complete Jen packaging (80% done in bag in room)	Jen/Lizzie/Queen
17	Call Sarah at Parkwood re accomm for first night	Mary/Sue
18	Call Sandy Harper if Parkwood full	Mary/Sue
19	Lift from Lanseria to Milpark – Richard Seegers?	Mary/Sue
20	No other calls to anyone until we are at Cape Town airport	All
21	Phone Granny, Grampa, Shirley and Ali	Gabs/Stu
22	Calls to other key family and friends and WhyFive (Brandon)	Mary/Sue
23	Call Abbotts and Stables re: Kristi	Gabi
24	GET TO AIRPORT AND FLY TO JHB	Jenna/Stu/Gabi/Kristi/Lizzie

Stuart takes a deep breath and musters all the calm he can. The first call is of course to me and Kristi, then the very next to Nurse Lizzie and the third to my rock and neighbour, Mary Berry. After making the first few calls, he pads softly into Jenna’s room to wake her and share the news. I don’t think there can be a more significant moment for a parent. He is very surprised to see Jen sitting up in her bed in the dark, waiting, her soft brown eyes watching the door expectantly.

“Jen, my love, it was Angela from Milpark Hospital. We’ve got lungs, Jen. They found a match. This is it, my love. It’s time to pack for Johannesburg.”

She looks at him with those intelligent eyes and says, “I heard the landline and I knew, Dad, I just knew.”

My stomach lurches when I imagine what was going on in Jenna’s mind at that precise moment. She was under no illusions. This was her one and only chance at life … but she also knew that lung transplants are extremely complex, and that she was desperately sick. The truth was that she might not survive the transplant – but she couldn’t live without it. A terrible, gut-wrenching conundrum. For months she had been living in both expectant hope and terrible dread of this call. She had fought so hard for this miracle. Just a few weeks earlier, as we lay cuddled up together on her bed, she had turned to me and said, “Mom, one of the hardest parts is that I don’t know if I am preparing to live or preparing to die.”

And there it is, the ultimate gut-twisting paradox of hope and fear. She is 20, just 20 years old. This call is her ultimate chance at life, and yet it is so risky.

Getting Jenna safely to Johannesburg, within four hours, requires military precision. At this stage she is on high levels of supplemental oxygen and a 24-hour-a-day pump of volatile intravenous medication. She is too weak and compromised to walk, never mind travel in a commercial aircraft cabin. But we have a clear and well-thought-out plan, with every detail documented.

Except I am not there. Barrier number one. Stuart continues executing Operation O2 without me. He has no choice.

With her golden-red hair, large light green eyes, friendly face and calm comforting manner, my trusted friend, confidante and neighbour of 15 years, Mary has become an essential and life-affirming support system for me. She lives directly opposite our driveway and is one of the first people on the list to call. I wouldn’t have gone away with Kristi if Mary wasn’t on hand and available for the time I was away. Within minutes she arrives at the house to help. Stu desperately needs to continue with phone calls as he has much to arrange (including the small matter of a plane! The city of Johannesburg is a two-hour flight from the city of Cape Town), and so it is the trusted Mary who goes into Jen’s bedroom to be with her at a moment I always believed would be me. Jen, who in all the years Mary has known her to remain rational and full of smiles, is unusually anxious, but she keeps her tone calm.

“Jen,” she says, “we can’t control whatever is unfolding here today, but what we know for sure is that this is going to be one of the most interesting days of your life.”

Even at the most challenging of times Jenna’s intellect and curiosity are always at play, and this perspective appeals to her. Selfishly, I wish with all my heart that it had been me with Jen at that moment, but on reflection (apart from the fact that I can’t change it) I think that the severity and significance of the moment would have been harder for her to cope with if I had been there, because Jenna would have felt responsible for the full weight of my fear and I would have felt responsible for the full weight of hers.

Stuart continues systematically executing Operation O2 without me. He hits a second barrier almost immediately. Months and months ago, Jonathan Ackerman and his family, out of the goodness of their hearts, had promised that when the moment came they would help get Jen to Johannesburg. He phones Jonathan, who picks up right away, and explains quickly what is unfolding. The Ackerman jet which has been on standby all those months is currently away in Europe. So is the head pilot. Stuart returns to methodically making his way down the list … every plane and every pilot is not on the ground in Cape Town. He phones option after option, getting more and more determined with each call. Meanwhile, unbeknown to him, Jonathan is activating his network, asking just one question. “What jets are on the ground in Cape Town?” Within 15 minutes Stuart’s phone rings. The caller is the pilot of the owner of a jet, whose urgent call caught him in his swim-shorts just as he was about to get into the ocean at Bloubergstrand for a long paddle-ski with his co-pilot and best friend. This incredibly kind man – who we don’t even know – is giving us his jet to take Jenna to Johannesburg.

“We are on our way to the runway,” the pilot tells Stuart. “We will be ready and waiting in 20 minutes.”

Stuart is still talking on the phone when Jonathan pulls up in our driveway. It is a colleague of his who has made this happen. His two pilots have quite literally dumped their paddle-ski, grabbed their car keys and are driving to the private runway at Cape Town International Airport. We have a plane.

Nurse Lizzie arrives at the house. She has her own gate-opener and lets herself in. Originally from the UK, blonde, blue-eyed lovely Lizzie is in her late 20s. She is a fully qualified nurse and has a youthful, wise soul. Serendipitously, she found her way to us through a long-standing former work colleague of mine from my magazine days. For the past year, Lizzie and I have spent every morning together mixing and administering the medication (an intravenous vaso-dilator called Eproprostenol) that goes into Jenna’s right heart chamber via a medical pump and a port in her chest. The mixing – a precise 35-step sterile process – takes an hour and a half (well, we eventually got it down to an hour) and requires both of us to concentrate throughout and double-check accuracy for safety’s sake. While I am away with Kristi, Lizzie has been doing the mixing either on her own or with Stuart at her side, both of them clad in their gloves and masks. Lizzie had been about to leave for our house to do the day’s mixing when she got the call from Stuart to say we’ve got lungs. She now arrives packed, calm, ready to fly and help.

Lizzie busies herself immediately with the medical side of things, checking on Jen, closely watching her vitals, and cross-referencing our detailed lists to ensure that she and I have packed everything we need. We already have a bag packed and waiting in the drug den (Jen’s affectionate name for our mixing room) on standby, but she triple-checks it anyway to make sure it includes extra medication for emergencies and that nothing is missing. What if the organs don’t arrive in Johannesburg on time? What if Jen is all prepped and ready for surgery and it can’t go ahead for some reason? These are valid and real possibilities that will require extra supplies of her daily intravenous and oral medications.

While Lizzie bustles and preps, Jenna tells Queen and Mary what to pack for her. She is physically weak, and her breathlessness doesn’t allow for physical exertion of any kind, so she sits on her bed quietly while the team helps pack. The meds are one thing … but the transplant also means we will be in Johannesburg not just for surgery but for recovery, rehabilitation and post-transplant care. Once Jen is out, we will have to remain close to the hospital for a minimum of six months, maybe even a year. All of this has to be packed for and thought about in just 20 minutes. Apart from complex medications and digital equipment such as her laptop, iPod, cellphone, Kindle and digital photo album, Jen’s priorities are books, journals and soft comfortable clothing. She is also a stationery and toiletries junkie. Weeks and weeks later, when I unpack her belongings on the other side, it will be poignant to see what she thought she might need.

Sitting on her bed in her red dressing-gown and fluffy slippers, Jen is staring down the biggest moment of her life: massive surgery, a potentially lifesaving double lung transplant, and a move to Johannesburg away from everyone and everything she knows and loves. It will start in 15 minutes. She has time to send just one text, to her boyfriend James, and her two best friends Alex and Camilla. It says three words only …

“Lungs. Johannesburg. Now.”

The bags are packed

The gate opposite our home slides quietly open and Steve Berry reverses his large red Toyota into our driveway so that Jenna’s mobility scooter, additional oxygen cylinders for the flight, the fastidiously packed bulging bags of medication, plus all the luggage can be loaded into the back of his car. As the “Cape Town team” are mobilising, Jen’s besties, Camilla and Alex, arrive wide-eyed to say goodbye. Emotion-filled hugs, some difficult words of support and hope-filled anticipation linger in the air as Jen is carried to the car. A last check … they have everything – it is a mere 35 minutes since the first phone call from Angela, the transplant co-ordinator. But where is James?

Filled to capacity, the red SUV starts making its way up Bertha Avenue in the direction of the airport. As Steve is about to turn left, a silver Polo comes speeding towards him and screeches to a halt. James throws open the car door, jumps out clad in his gym shorts, T-shirt and training shoes and runs towards Jen. They can’t say goodbye, it is too loaded; impossible, they just can’t say goodbye. “Come to the airport,” says Stu. James gets back in his car and follows the red SUV, speeding behind them as they head purposefully towards the airport. He will say goodbye on the runway.

George airport

Back up the coast on the Garden Route we, too, are speeding along a highway, but to George airport. Jillie, my serene Mother-Earth, fun-loving, lifelong friend, has her hazard lights flashing. She is concentrating hard, focusing on keeping us safe and me calm. The intention is to make the 10:45 am flight to Johannesburg. It’s going to be tight, but we can make it.

The phone rings. It’s Ian. He asks me to pass the phone to Jillie – strange, because she is driving, but he insists. Jillie listens. “Oh, okay. Okay, we will do that,” she says, slowing down. “I will call you from the airport.” She ends the call and lifts her foot slightly off the gas. Then she switches off the hazards and slows down to a normal pace. My heart quickens. What is she doing? This is a matter of life and death, we have to get there!

“Gabs, my Gabs, you are going to have to take a deep breath,” Jillie says. “There are currently no planes on the runway in George. A massive storm in Johannesburg has grounded them all. We will head to the airport anyway, but Ian says the next plane is only due in a few hours’ time.” I open my mouth, about to protest. “He’s checked the private planes too. There is nothing on the ground, my friend.” She reaches over with one hand to take mine. Kristi, sitting in the back, doesn’t say a word. Neither do I … there is too much to say. We drive the rest of the way to the airport in silence. Jillie is right – not a single plane in sight. If there had been, I might well have hijacked it. But there is not one single damn plane on that runway.

We make our way to the coffee shop and Jillie guides us to a table close to the window. She gently busies herself ordering tea to keep us calm. Jen loves tea … she has a poster in her bedroom that reads “Where there is tea there is hope”. We wait, and wait, and wait … I buy a fluffy monkey at the airport shop, I have no idea why, and I cling to it. I phone my mom and my dad. I phone some close friends to tell them we have lungs. And we wait. And we wait. And we wait.

Cape Town airport

The packed red SUV pulls up on the private runway at Cape Town International airport only 50 minutes after the first phone call has been made – a planning triumph – where a small jet and its two pilots, who are already preparing for take-off, are ready and waiting. The bags get loaded and James carries Jenna and her oxygen machine up the metal steps to settle her into her seat. Then he fetches the extra tanks and takes them on board. But he still can’t say goodbye to Jen. Even the pilot is choked up. The strapping young man looks at James, this fresh-faced 20-year-old trying to say goodbye to his gorgeous young girlfriend and says: “Stay, stay with your girl. We are turning this baby straight back towards Cape Town once we’ve offloaded everyone at Lanseria airport. We will ‘lift’ you home afterwards.”

And so, while Kristi and I desperately wait in George airport for a commercial plane, Stuart, Nurse Lizzie, Jenna and James take off in the small jet headed for Johannesburg, with Mary and Steve Berry and Jonathan Ackerman waving them goodbye from the runway.

Because it’s a private jet, Stuart is able to phone and update me on how Jen is until they reach a certain height. He continues making some necessary logistical calls for as long as he can, including a very important call to Raffaella Ruttell at Discovery Health, our medical health insurance provider. Jenna will need a helicopter and paramedics to get her from the airport, which is north of the city, to Milpark Hospital so that they don’t get stuck in the notorious Johannesburg traffic. Stu and Lizzie will follow in an ambulance. Raffaella and her team are on it, efficient and proactive. Operation O2 is not only operational, it is in full flight.

George airport

Phone calls ebb and flow between Stuart and me and still we wait. I am helpless, desperate, my stomach churns, adrenaline coursing. I just want to get to my child, but the mother of storms has other ideas. Kristi is still monosyllabic. One minute she was running with her pack, having a huge party with her boyfriend and her closest mates in Plett and the next she was plucked up and is now jetting her way to Johannesburg, where her sister (and best friend) is about to have massive and complex surgery. She also knows from all our research that the statistics for lung transplants with very sick pulmonary hypertension patients are not ideal.

I focus every bit of strength I have on staying calm and hopeful. This is our opportunity to save Jenna’s life, to buy her more time. I need to stay present, but it’s hard. It’s so hard. There have been very few times in the past 365 days when I have been more than 10 minutes from Jenna’s side. I have dedicated myself to taking care of her every need since the port was inserted into her chest on the 10th of December 2013 to start the 24-hour intravenous medication. And yet here I am, stuck at George airport as she wings her way towards a double lung transplant. I should be at her side! We have to get there, fast. I have to see her before surgery. I have to.

The first plane from George to OR Tambo leaves at 2:15 pm. 2:15 pm! We have been waiting for four hours, four of the longest, most conflicted and anxiety-filled hours of my life. Little do I know how many more of those waiting hours there are to come. Little do I know that this wait is just child’s play.

Finally, we are about to board our flight. I won’t be able to talk to anyone again while we are in the air, so I phone Stuart one last time.

“We’ve boarded, Stu, at last. We are on the plane, it’s about to take off. How is Jen? What stage are you at?”

Stu is at Milpark Hospital. “Jen had a really difficult time on the jet, my love,” he says. “Her oxygen saturation levels dropped dangerously low.” James had apparently held her on his lap like a baby. “But the helicopter was ready and waiting to take her straight to the hospital and there was a full complement of doctors and hospital management waiting to receive her. We got here only half an hour later in the ambulance, with all the stuff.”

We? Again, James and Jenna haven’t been able to say goodbye ... he goes to the hospital with Lizzie and Stu, still dressed in his gym kit.

Soothingly Stuart urges me yet again not to worry. “I’m sure there is still time. They are doing all sorts of tests prepping her for surgery at a slow and leisurely pace and the organs haven’t arrived in Johannesburg yet. Just get here safely, Gabs. We are waiting.”

I settle in for the longest flight of my life. I spend the two hours thinking about the donor family. Somewhere in South Africa, as I fly towards hope, another mother, another family, is mourning the loss of their beloved while giving mine a chance at life. What is that poor family going through? Who are they? We will never find out. In South Africa the law prohibits you from knowing who your donor family is. The organs can come from anyone – male or female, child or adult – as long as the biology of the tissue, blood type and size are a match. Jen is petite, so the chances are that it had to be someone light in build, with the same blood and tissue type, but we will never know who. I spend the flight sending gratitude and love out into the universe in the hope that some of it will shower down into that mother’s heart and ease some of her intense pain and loss.

While we are in flight, Jen is being stabilised and settled into the Isolation Ward, Section 7, where she will move once she is well enough to leave ICU post-surgery. James stays at her side all day, lying next to her on top of the hospital bedding (he’s not really allowed, but everyone turns a blind eye), talking to her and keeping her distracted and entertained, chatting to friends on her mobile, while Stuart signs multiple forms, completes the paperwork, and has a tour of the hospital. Lizzie manages other medical logistics such as Jenna’s pump and changing of medication and ice-packs. Even though Jen is now in a first-class hospital, there is still no one other than Lizzie and I who know how to mix and administer her meds. In 2014, Jenna is the first person in Africa to be on this medication.

Johannesburg airport

At 4:20 pm Kristi and I land at OR Tambo in Johannesburg. We have a plan – run. Forget the luggage and run to the first taxi. We stumble off the plane, stampede down the steps and start sprinting toward the exit, thundering down the escalator. As we run past the baggage reclaim conveyor belt towards the exit, I see a familiar and totally unexpected face. Shirley, Stuart’s younger sister, is waiting there. The minute he heard about the call, our ridiculously generous, kind-hearted friend Gavin Levy had put Shirley on a plane from Cape Town to come and support us. There are many heartbreaking reasons (which I will share with you later) why Shirl is the perfect person to help guide and hold our family through this unfolding medical drama. I can’t believe she is standing there! She can see how frantic I am. “Go, go, you go!” she says. “Get to the hospital! I will bring the luggage.”

Kristi and I leave her waiting for our bags and tumble, wheezing (the altitude in Johannesburg is punishing when you first land), into the taxi. “Milpark Hospital,” I say. “Take us to Milpark Hospital, fast!” I explain breathlessly that my eldest daughter is being prepped for a lung transplant and I have to get there, fast! The driver looks horrified.

It is 4:30 pm and the road from the airport is thick with bumper-to-bumper traffic. This is normal in Johannesburg for this time of day but made worse because of the large storm and dark moody skies overhead. The driver radios into his office. “Central, central, come in. Switch off the tracking system,” he says. “I have an emergency.” And just like that our taxi driver switches on his hazard lights, pulls across into the yellow emergency lane on the far left of the four-lane highway, puts his hand on the hooter and floors it.

I phone Stuart. He speaks gently and quietly. I can hear he is near Jenna and trying to keep the mood calm and low-key. “She is nearly ready, Gabs,” he says, “but there is a minor delay with the delivery of organs. So that is good for you. Just get here safely. I think you’ll make it.”

Eight hours after the first phone call from Stuart, at about 5 pm, we skid to a stop in the drop-off zone right outside the Milpark Hospital entrance. Kristi and I scramble out of the taxi and run down the long passage that leads from the entrance hall towards the Surgical ICU. Down the stairs, to the left, through the double doors and down another passage right to the end and through the double no-entry glass doors at the back that read ISOLATION WARD. We push them open, there are nurses everywhere. Kristi reaches for my arm, we look each other straight in the eyes, stop for a moment, and take deep, deep breaths. In unspoken agreement we leave our frantic despair and fear in the passage and walk into Jen’s room calm and steady.

We all fall into each other’s arms. Relief at seeing Jen floods through me. I just want to hold her. Kristi and I perch on the edge of her hospital bed as she tells us in her gentle breathless voice all about the adventures of the day. But in true Jen fashion she wants to hear Kristi’s Plett Rage stories too, not just talk about “the call”. I am so grateful that James has been there for her. He makes her happy and he has taken a lot of the angst out of the day. Now he respectfully steps aside and allows Kristi and me our time with Jen. It is the first time I’ve heard Kristi talk for just about the entire day. I let the two sisters chat and giggle quietly, while I check in with Stuart and Lizzie on the side. They are ready, the medical team is ready. Her new lungs haven’t arrived yet, but they are on a plane (from where we don’t know) and on their way.

It is time. Time to get our Jen into surgery.

Everything we have been working so hard towards and waiting so hopefully for culminates in this moment. It is emotionally unfathomable, a moment in time so poignant and massive that you can’t possibly know how to deal with it, so you just do.

Now it’s time to say a pre-surgery goodbye. Stuart, Kristi, James, Lizzie and I walk next to Jen in her hospital bed, all holding her hands, as she is wheeled into the pre-surgery area. My heart is racing but my face is calm and encouraging, my voice gentle and considered. There is so much fear that can’t be shown. We all have our brave faces on.

We kiss and hug one last time. Jenna is looking straight up at me, smiling, a smile full of courage and hope. I stroke her soft velvet cheek and kiss it one last time before the nurses pull her bed away from me towards the double doors that read THEATRE. The bed bumps the doors open.

I call out, “See you on the other side, my love.”

Jenna calls back over her shoulder, “I’m not going to the other side, Mom.” She is smiling encouragingly as the doors close behind her.