General Info

I realized we needed to share some general info about our trip for friends. Joe, Janelle & I are staying here at Mayo at a hotel connected to the hospital. Jimmy stayed home w/ our awesome support system of neighbors & family to finish out his freshman year in high school and track season. He will arrive in Florida on 6/18. Joe is going through a battery of testing to make sure his body can handle the transplant and if all goes well we hope to get him on the transplant list by 5/13 and then it may take anywhere from 4 weeks to 3 months for his transplant to happen. Joe has already waited on the list at UCLA for over a year but the list is about 10 times as long as Mayo so his doctor sent us here. We have to stay within a 2 hour radius of the hospital to be ready at any time for the call that they have a liver for him. After transplant we'll have more freedom. If things go well the kids and I will fly home the beginning of July and Joe's mom will come out to stay with him til he can go home. Our insurance requires Joe to stay in Jacksonville for 50 days after his transplant so we kinda have to see how things go. Fortunately Joe has no other complications with his rare form of liver disease called PSC(primary sclerosing cholangitus) so he feels relatively well. We're looking forward to spending time with his sister/family coming up from
St. Petersburg and hoping to see my friend Amy in Lakeland. Hope this helps. Again we can't say enough how much we appreciate everyone's support for us on this adventure in life. We truly am thankful for you all. Love, Julie