Cindy in Chicago - Day Eleven

Average wait time at the University of IL: 180 days. Days I've waited on the list: 178

Monday
5-2-2011

Oh, the weather...we had one sunny day but it is warming up. I hear summer in Chicago is gorgeous. I'd like to be home by Fourth of July. But I guess I'd have a good view of the fireworks from the 38th floor.

Eleven days here in Chicago? Really? Wow, I'm living in a dream.

But, today is....drum role please...Miracle Monday. I have to, for my own sanity, list the miracles that have happened since starting this pancreas journey. Ready, set, go:

1. I go to Florida the day after Valentine's day for a one week book tour. I had gotten my last and final answer from all pancreas transplant centers I'd contacted that no one would do a pancreas transplant on me--too dangerous--too iffy. I search and find an experimental program in Belgium I apply for. But through a gentleman who attended my first speaking event, who introduced me to a gal who had a pancreas transplant three years ago, I contact this life saving doctor here in Chicago who says, "YES, I will give you a pancreas--I won't let you die."


2. After returning home and teaching at two events, including a large conference that took a lot of work, I have to fly out to Chicago for testing and hopeful approval. The airline ticket was $398.00. The gentleman I met in Florida sent me a check from the Southwest Florida Transplant Assistance organization to help me with my expenses. The check was for $400.00. Ticket paid for.


3. On a Wednesday night, my husband and I sat at the kitchen table and calculated that with all the time needed to stay in Chicago, we'd need $3,000.00 for housing. Have to take out an equity loan. Don't want to use credit card--he had just lost his job of 30 years and was waiting to find out if he will be relocated. The next afternoon, Thursday, I received a letter from a famous writer and long time friend. In it was a check for $3,000.00. He sent it on Monday from Atlanta, Georgia. Felt like God wanted him to send it. He had no idea what John and I had discussed. Housing paid for--in full.


4. After being here five days, things didn't go well where I was staying. I had to leave quickly. I asked friends on Facebook to pray for me--specifically. A sweet friend prayed for a taxi driver who was a Christian and would be safe and would take me anywhere I needed to go for exactly $75.00. Less than a minute after I read her post on my cell phone, the taxi drove up, the driver was a Christian, he set the meter at exactly $75.00--a flat rate to go anywhere I needed to go, and when we arrived in the city of Chicago at my new place, he prayed for me.


5. Now I have to make my budget stretch further and in the city--it wouldn't work. The $3,000.00 would no longer last--but someone wanted to help--anonymously--and paid for the first 7 days in my new place and then the discounted rate afterwards made it once again, perfect.

Wow, next--a miracle pancreas transplant. Not sure anyone has ever done one on someone like me who already had a heart transplant, is a diabetic, and has been through so many surgeries and life-threatening situations in only 9 and a half years.

I hope Miracle Monday brings the ultimate miracle...

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