Meeting Today

First of all, we are humbled by all of your prayers and support. It really makes me tear up and I hate to cry.

I’m sorry it has taken so long to get you all an update of Angela’s visit with the transplant coordinator today. We were given a wealth of information and I have been sifting through it trying to wrap my head around it so I could pass it on.

We had been under the impression that the person we were meeting with today would be the person ordering all of the tests that were needed to place Angela on the waiting list for a heart. The lady we saw basically answered our questions and let us know what we could expect to happen next.

She will be gathering all of Angela’s recent and past medical information and sending it to Tucson. That is where (insurance willing) she will be having her surgery. After they receive that information, someone from a transplant team will let us know what blood tests we need to have done. This is supposed to be about 3 days from now. A team of transplant specialists in Tucson will review Angela’s case and set up an evaluation for her. The team meets once a week depending on the availability of the surgeon. We were told to expect it to be 2-3 weeks before we heard from them.

The evaluation will take 3 days. They will do multiple echocardiograms (ultrasound of her heart), a chest x-ray, CT scan and few other things. She has to meet with doctors, nurses and a psychiatrist. From that point, there will be a determination on “listing” her. We were told that she should go right on the list because of the disease that she has. They can’t tell us how long the listing process will take, how long we can expect to be on the list, or how many other people are on the list in our region. The determination of who will get available organs is based on a number of things including how long you have been on the list, the severity of your condition, your weight, the results of your blood work and your blood type.

As far as insurance goes, we do have medical insurance. Our lifetime maximum is higher than most. The down side to our medical insurance right now is that the closest hospital that does transplants that is in-network is UCLA. We are about 2 ½ hours north of Tucson in Arizona. The Tucson hospital is not in-network. Our in-network annual maximum is $3,500. Our out-of-network is $12,000.

When you are on the list, they give you a pager. When that pager goes off, you need to be at the hospital within 1 ½ hours. So, you have to stay close to the hospital for months. After the surgery, she will be in the hospital for 1-2 weeks. After that, she needs to stay at a Ronald McDonald House type of facility near the hospital for 2-6 months. We are choosing to have her surgery here because it seems overwhelming to be split as a family for so long. We are going to start doing some fund raising.

For those of you who God has placed it on their hearts to help, thank you. I will get out more information about that when I get it. We covet your prayers the most. God is good. Please pray for the donor and the donor family. Pray for the salvation of the donor that he/she knows Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

Thank you SO MUCH again.

The Olivas’