Number 99 Dons Leafs Jersey
Monday, February 4th, 2008 by TappyWell for those of you who thought “the great one” was coming out of retirement and going to lace up with the leafs ………..I hate to disappoint you. Misleading headlines seems to be my style and I couldn’t resist running that one by you. I’ll tell you more about the jersey later but first, I want to tell you that Georgie and I are hoping we will be home in early April. Things are going so well it scares me at times.
Today I had PFT’s (pulmonary function tests) and my numbers continue to improve so that now my lung seems to be working at a very respectable rate. The two benchmarks they seem to watch most are forced vital capacity and forced expiratory volume in one second. Three weeks after my operation I was at 69 and 64 percent of predicted values. Today It was 88 and 81 percent respectively.
Naturally Georgie and I were feeling quite elated with the numbers but were not prepared for what awaited us when we reached the physio room. Mark and Dianne Henchcliffe presented me with a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey on behalf of themselves; Ross and Barb McTavish and Russ and Carolyn Lively. Dianne, Ross and Carolyn all received new lungs last year. (Russ and Carolyn are from Beaverbank, Nova Scotia.)
Needless to say I was floored and thrilled to death but I threatened to cross-check them all if they didn’t tell me how it came about.
Mark, Ross and Russ were chatting in the physio room one day while I was still recovering from the operation. They noted that I was the 99th person to be transplanted in 2007 and decided to get me something with the number 99 on it. They decided on a shirt and ;gave Dianne the task of finding one. She in turn asked her two daughters Victoria and Sarah to put their heads together. And those girls went shopping. If you notice the jersey is the old CCM style, not easy to come by……I just love it. I don’t know how they knew to put Tappy on the back.
I’ve mentioned many times the kindness and thoughtfulness of people Georgie and I have been running into since our arrival here almost 15 months ago and this is just another example. The people in the transplant program are special to us and in many ways are like an extended family. Love you all. Thanks.