Transplant Take Two

It's a go for 6:00am - the Infant Transport Team is slated to start the transfer process of Ford and all his equipment from bed to isolette, to ambulance, to air ambulance, to ambulance, to SickKids.

This time I get the pleasure of riding in the Infanta's Lear jet while Christa slums along behind us on Air Canada.

We have had another whirlwind few days. Even though we've been back in town for a couple of weeks now we didn't really get much lead time on this latest adventure. Our horrible first week knocked the socks off us both and we had been hiding in a sulky, shell-shocked gloom until the impending departure kicked us in the ass. We've had a chance to visit with close family and friends, who have once again shown us a stunning amount of compassion and generosity - our spirits have been recharged, and buoyed, and hope-filled and we're ready to haul our exhausted butts out of bed in just under 5 hours.

Assuming once again that this is the real deal, we're planning to be gone for months - 3-6 to be exact, which includes not only the wait time for a heart but the requisite post-op recovery and period of observation. I spent the last 3 days destroying the art I spent the last year and a half building before emptying my studio at school and bidding it an unsentimental farewell. We've shuffled our living space to make room for the sitters, cleaned to the best of our ability, cancelled our car insurance, patted the cat goodbye, and hopefully have all our loose ends tied off.

Though we're sad to be leaving Vancouver, we're really most sad to be leaving all of the nurses and doctors who've gotten to know Ford so well. Hopefully when we return our city will be less an inaccessible, militarized fortress for the world's super-rich and more the sleepy damp village we love so much.