Freak Out

Well, we had our first official freak out tonight when the phone rang....

I was officially put on the list on Monday July 27th at 12:17pm. It was a special day because it was Simon and Matias' birthday. The official notification on that day just seemed appropriate. The week went by with not quite as much anxiety as I had thought knowing they could call me anytime...Anyway back to the phone call...

Tonight at 9pm, our home phone rang. If you know Rebecca and I, you know we do not use our home phone and you probably don't even know our number. Our phone never rings...I jumped off the couch and of course could not find the phone. I don't know where we keep the closest one. That is the truth. Rebec yelled directions to me.. I answered.. 'hello' soft tenor voice:'Mr. Greenberg'...'yes' (myheart dropped)..'This is Francis, Simon and Matias' camp bus driver, I will be picking them up on Monday...'

Back to the waiting. Becky (my lung transplant coordinator), is optimistic that my wait should be approx. 6 weeks. That is relatively short. It seems I have alot in my favor. I have a slightly higher than average lung allocation score. This is how they allocate lungs now. Imagine that. I also have the most rare blood type. AB-. I can accept A blood type or B blood type as the universal receiver, but those would most likely go to an exact match, but could be passed to me. However, there are no people my size on the list right now with AB blood. So, if an AB donor tragically becomes available, it would go to me. Finally, my size (height) is perfect. Most donors are men 18-34 with an average height of 5'7" to 6'2".

We are still debating whether to move down to Chapel Hill at the end of August. We will have a place on the 15th. We can stay up here though until they call. A great organization called Angel Flight will be ready to fly me down should the call come...

The Big Bad Breath (Wolf)

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to our Blog. We are attempting a tech unsavy blog to document my (this is Mitch writing now) Double-lung transplant. Please feel free to share this blog with anyone who might be interested. Brief history. I was diagnosed with CF (cystic fibrosis) 36 years ago at birth. My lungs are done and it is time for new ones. Of course we are leaving out alot of the drama and history, but this is a blog about the transplant and the future.

CF is causing my lungs to produce the Big Bad Breath. The story behind this is as follows: We are currently on our trip to UNC at Chapel Hill to finalize all the details for the transplant. We decided to stop in Williamsburg, VA and go to Busch Gardens. We all rode the Big Bad Wolf!! It was a big acccomplishment for the twins, Simon and Matias. We had a blast. Soon, the nickname for my CF, and theme of the trip while on the way to the hospital at Chapel Hill, became my Big Bad Breath. We all found this very funny and appropriate, hence the blog title. It also served as an easy and fun way for Simon and Matias to start to comprehend the journey ahead....

We hope to keep you all posted on the status as my transplant approaches and we can forever get rid of these lungs inside of me that give me such BIG BAD BREATH!!