we are speeding along the Garden Route highway towards George airport, hazard lights flashing. Jillie is at the wheel, I am in the passenger seat, willing the car to go faster, and Kristi, now a whiter shade of pale, sits in shocked silence on the back seat.
Cape Town: Wednesday, 10th December 2014, 9:10 am
As usual for this time of day, Jenna is fast asleep. Stuart is in his office, which is on our property at home, outside the main house, going about his normal working day.
Jenna’s cellphone rings but she doesn’t take the call. Of course, she can’t take the call. She is now at stage IV of her illness, and so oxygen deprived that she sleeps for a large part of the day and is hard to wake up. But on this day something makes her stir. The call cuts off before she gets to it, but almost immediately the landline down the passage starts to ring. Queen, as caring and regal as her name suggests, has been helping me as Jenna’s nurse aide for nearly a year now. Close by in the kitchen, she picks up the call. It’s Angela, regional transplant co-ordinator from Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg. Queen’s pace quickens as she takes the phone outside to Stuart in his office. He is on a call to a client, but Queen thrusts the phone at him with an unusual sense of urgency.
“Hello, Stuart? It’s Angela from Milpark Hospital. How fast can you get Jenna to Johannesburg? We’ve got lungs. We have a match. Stuart, we have lungs for Jenna.”
Down the passage behind a closed door Jenna, our beautiful 20-year-old daughter, waits. Normally she never stirs much before lunchtime, but on this day something is different. She intuitively knows. She sits up slowly in her bed in the dark, bedroom blinds still drawn, and waits.
“We will make a plan. We will get there, Angela, we will get there. How long do we have?” Heart pounding, Stuart turns to Brandon, his business partner, and Queen, who is waiting expectantly. “Brandon, Queen … this is it. We have a green light for Operation O2, and Gabs isn’t here. I need your help.”
He picks up a stapled document sitting at the top of his in-tray. It is three pages long and marked boldly “Operation O2”. Five days earlier, the day I left for Keurboomstrand with Kristi, I had printed out a fresh copy and Stuart and I had gone through it carefully together. When the call you have been waiting for so many months for finally comes, your mind can temporarily leave. He is grateful for our military preparedness and follows the instructions word for word. We have plotted it carefully and fastidiously:
“Operation O2”
| To do | Action | Status | |
| 1 | New Discovery authorisation numbers | Gabi | Done |
| 2 | Copy of all IDs plus Lizzie’s for Sue J | Gabi | Done |
| 3 | Create phone tree for Mary B and Sue J | Gabi | Done |
| 4 | Dry run to ExecuJet Cape Town | Stu/Steve | Done |
| 5 | Pack medication bag and spare meds | Gabs/Lizzie | Done |
| 6 | Pack a hospital bag: PJs, toiletries etc. | Gabs | Done |
| 7 | Buy emergency car lights | Stu |
| When the call comes | ||
| 1 | Call nurse Lizzie Brierley (Liz calls Queen) | Gabi |
| 2 | Where is Kristi? Find her, get her home | Stuart |
| 3 | Call Mary and Sue: airport lift to come to us | Gabi |
| 4 | Phone pilots: • Larry Beamish • Gunther Grobers • Garreth Gill • Ryan Dassonville • Ampie Steynberg • Jonathan Ackerman | Stuart |
| 5 | Discovery to activate authorisation numbers | Gabi |
| 6 | Call Raffaella Ruttell at Discovery Health | Gabi |
| 7 | Call Alison Paynter at Discovery | Gabi |
| 8 | Lanseria Helicopter: Disco 911 0860 999 911 | Stu |
| 9 | Lanseria ground crew: Carlene Morrison | Stu |
| 10 | Call Prof. Wilcox | Stu |
| 11 | Call house-sitter for Bertha Ave to look after house and dogs | Stu |
| 12 | Pack Chase and battery for Chase | Stu |
| 13 | Pack Oxy-Jen and all portable oxygen, plus additional cylinders for plane | Gabi |
| 14 | Pack all bags and oral drugs (complete green bag 80% packed in drug den) | Gabi |
| 15 | Pack pesonal belongings, pyjamas, toiletries, clothes | Gabi/Stu/Kristi |
| 16 | Complete Jen packaging (80% done in bag in room) | Jen/Lizzie/Queen |
| 17 | Call Sarah at Parkwood re accomm for first night | Mary/Sue |
| 18 | Call Sandy Harper if Parkwood full | Mary/Sue |
| 19 |
Lift from Lanseria to Milpark – Richard
|
