(Birthday) Guest Blog: Father Knows Best

Guest Post Stats:
Name: Michael Beatty (aka Piper's dad)
Age: 63 as of TODAY!
Credentials: Lawyer/law professor. Father for 31 years, "CF dad" for 28. Active volunteer and advocate for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Professional frequent flier. Granddad to Sampson the puppy.
Special Talents Include: Holding down the fort in Denver, traveling between Denver and NYC in less than 7 hours for multiple dry runs, trick bike riding.
Hometown: Denver, CO





We All Need Somebody to Lean On

Well, the call finally came. No, no, not that kind of call. After four dry runs, we've come to treat transplant calls with the same kind of excitement normally reserved for telemarketers. I'm talking about the call that my daughter made to ask me to write this post for her blog. Although Kathleen and Erin have both had their star turns, I have thus far been happy with my role catching planes, walking the dog, and providing comic relief with my bicycle crash. (Piper's editorial note: check out this post for the story of my father's bicycle antics.) Nonetheless, I will endeavor to offer my view of the life lessons learned on the transplant floor of Columbia Presbyterian last Friday.

A few days ago, Kathleen called my law office at the beginning of the Friday rush hour to tell me that she and Piper were headed to the hospital (again). My office staff flew into an organized frenzy and got me out the door with a boarding pass, some cash, and one hour to make it to the airport and catch the plane. I made it only because several drivers were nice enough to allow me to cross several lanes of traffic to get to a less congested side street and other people let me cut to the front of the security screening line. I boarded the plane as the door closed and made it not only to NYC, but all the way to the hospital before Piper was even take down to the OR holding room.

As Piper has already explained, the OR holding room is where both the primary and the back-up wait for word on the condition of the lungs. Like "Let's Make a Deal," both families wait together to see what is behind Door Number 1: a double lung for our daughter, a single for another family's loved one, or sometimes just a disappointing judgment call on the part of some very wise doctors. In the best case scenario, one family will win new lungs, while the other will go home without so much as a consolation subscription to Good Housekeeping.

That night was no exception, as we waited for the decision with the back-up, a retired NY policeman, and his sister. And, as we waited, we were privileged to learn his story: how barely a year before he had been diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis at his retirement physical, and received the shocking prognosis that he would soon need a lung transplant. He had been listed only earlier that week, and now found himself serving as the back-up to my daughter.

Although he probably didn't know that being a back-up to Piper seems like a virtual guarantee that you will get new lungs at this point, he was, quite understandably, a bit nervous. I tried to put myself in his position and am pretty sure I would have preferred facing down Tony Montana and his "little friend" ("Scarface" 1983) rather than sitting on his gurney. Less scary. And, because we had done this all before and he had not, the natural reaction was to start a conversation and try to learn from each other.

From his end came a mixture of genuine concern for "the young woman with the beautiful smile" and the inevitable nervousness of someone about to face a surgery for which he thought he would have more time to prepare. From our end came the joy of having known many amazing transplant survivors mixed with the somewhat jaded consciousness that comes with a few dry runs. Piper, as usual, was gracious, engaging, and reassuring (she's going to hate that I'm writing this!). She assured him that it was probably worth the sacrifice of giving up raw oysters for the chance to breathe; she made him laugh by complimenting his stylish hospital getup; she re-framed a terrifying prospect as an exciting opportunity. And when the decision was made and the judgment came down that neither of them would be getting new lungs, she took heart in his positive attitude and good humor.

So these are my two lessons from the transplant floor: First, God always has a custard pie up His sleeve. You never know when a volcano will erupt, an earthquake will shake your foundation, or you will be told you need new lungs by summer. Life is full of surprises and not all of them are happy ones, so take the time right now to give your life meaning. Second, the best way I know of to find that meaning is to understand that we are all in this together. Whether you let a father cut in line to get to his sick daughter in New York, offer a comforting word to a Clint Eastwood cop in an unfamiliar situation, smile at the doctor who has just delivered you bad news, or simply offer up a silent prayer every time a blog post announces yet another call, you have grabbed a golden ring on the merry-go-round of life.

And when we can no longer challenge our circumstances, at our best we can still challenge ourselves and reach out to others. Because, as the song says, it truly won't be long until we're gonna need someone to do the same for us.

How You Met My Mother

Guest Post Stats:
Name: Kathleen Beatty (aka Piper's mom)
Age: Wouldn't you like to know.
Credentials: Political science professor. 31 years experience as a mom, 28 years bonus as a "CF mom." Primary caretaker (um, make that carePARTNER) in Piper's transplant journey. "Grandma" to Sampson the puppy. All-around superwoman. First time blogger.
Special Talents Include: Treatment enforcer, honorary pharmacist and nurse, CFF advocate.
Hometown: Denver, CO (currently Living in NYC)


Hi. I'm Kathleen Beatty, Piper's mom, and this is my first foray into blog writing. I have to confess being more than a little intimidated by my daughter's prose -- and humor -- but bear with me. I have something to say to the parents among you.

There is something truly surreal about being the parent of a hopeful lung-transplant recipient. I've thought about this a lot. How did I get from Point A -- living with a relatively healthy kid who had a very normal life (if one overlooks the 30+ pills a day, lugging ridiculous pieces of equipment into hotel rooms where neighbors wonder if a plane is taking off in the next room, living in the mist of nebulizers, and starting or disconnecting home IVs in every imaginable place) to Point B -- listening to a charming and funny doctor say things like "IF you make it past the first three months" and then later "IF you make it through the first five years, you WILL eventually experience chronic rejection." How did we arrive at a place where we can sit dry-eyed (most of the time) and hope that someday soon a young surgeon will rip open our child's chest, remove her rotting lungs, and sew in a new pair -- just like that?

I often think back to the milestones we've passed on our way to "end-stage cystic fibrosis" (and really, who decided to call it THAT??). I remember dreading those milestones -- the clubbing, then regular hospitalizations or home IVs, the colonization of dreaded bacteria, the central line, nighttime oxygen, feeding tubes (Piper has actually skipped that one), really frequent home IVs and hospitalizations, the bronchoscopies, CF-related Diabetes (she has so far dodged that bullet, too), osteoporosis or arthritis, and finally -- the monster dread -- the transplant. In each case, my husband and I would say quietly at night: "at least she's not on oxygen," or "at least she doesn't have XXX bacteria (the next dreaded bug)." When Piper was an infant and contracted pneumonia at four weeks, we even whispered, "at least she doesn't have cystic fibrosis" because, in the neighboring room a 5 year old was dying of CF. Only two weeks later we would learn that Piper, too, suffered from the disease.

In those weeks and months after Piper's diagnosis, I fell deeply into grief. Children are supposed to outlive their parents. They are meant to be happy and healthy -- to have "normal lives." I read every gruesome bit of literature I could find about the horrors of CF, and I spent lots of time driving around in my care, crying rivers for my daughter's "normal life."

But the truth is, Piper's actual normal life -- her own personal version -- really was lovely. She was and is so full of life, and she's happy. But of course that didn't mean that didn't mean that there weren't more milestones in our future.

A day came when the doctors we knew so well said "Piper is colonizing pseudomonas and needs to be hospitalized" or "Piper will need oxygen at night to avoid damaging her heart and to improve her sleep" and we would pack up our bags, go to that hospital, and watch for improvement, or we went to pick up the oxygen canisters and concentrators. And, while one little voice wants to say "no, it's not time yet -- not for my child," another part of us knows that it is time and that we have passed yet another milestone. And, somehow, we (as CF parents) not only find the strength to keep going, but to welcome the physical relief that new treatments may bring to our very normal kids.

This all builds up to transplant, the most dreaded of the dreaded it seems. Piper had described in her blog her feelings when her doctor explained that she was referring her for a transplant evaluation. I was there. I don't think either of us said one word on the way home from the appointment. No, it can't be time. She just finished law school. She's working at a major firm. She has big ideas about life. We can't be facing a lung transplant.

Since that day, we have looked at CT scans that show petrified swiss cheese where the lungs should be. We've had sleepless nights filled with more coughing than I thought possible (and for the parents of a CFer, that's saying a lot!). We've done treatments at 3 AM, 7 AM, midnight. She has coughed up unbelievable quantities of mucus, had terrible reactions to drugs, experienced chronic and frequent lung infections, and even lung collapses. We've even been to New York City emergency rooms -- not a happy experience. Through it all, though, Piper continues to live a perfectly normal life (her kind of normal and, yes, our kind of normal too).

Something else has happened. A calm has settled over our Manhattan apartment. (Piper, however, would not agree that I or the rest of the family is "calm." During one of our "dry runs" the doctors informed her she should try to be at the hospital within a half hour, and I ignored my checklist and jumped straight into a nice hot shower. My husband continued his exercise class. My older daughter invited a friend over to calm her nerves. Piper was left fielding phones calls and wondering what in the heck happened to her well-organized support team -- needless to say she's whipped us all into shape since then.) But somehow we (and I mean all of us here, including you) know that we will find the strength to think a shiny new pair of lungs will be a great thing for our kids, when that time comes. We get better every day at living in the moment and at trusting that, as my husband said recently, "we don't know what will happen, but we do know that there will be a happy ending. That's our choice."