On the next day, the fifth of April, one of the doctors spoke to me on the stairs. He said, “We have a liver for your husband.” He said, “I’m positive the operation will be a success, but we think he might die afterward.” He said if it were his father he would go ahead. Deborah got all upset and said, “Are we doing the right thing?” I told her daddy and I had discussed what he wanted to do. So, I told them to please go ahead. He went into the operating room at 9 p.m. on the sixth, and came out at 6:30 a.m. on the seventh. Once again he was in intensive care for seven days.
Deborah and Larry had to return home. It was the eighth of April. I missed them so. They had been such a comfort. David gave up a quarter (three months of school), and Kristi got leave from her job. Peter was the first one of us that Harry recognized. He had a little red light on his index finger and pointed it at Peter, and Peter put his finger on the end of Harry’s finger. We all knew he knew we were there.
We used to leave the apartment at 6:30 a.m. and I would stay all day until 11 p.m. Peter stayed ten days in all. Harry was moved off the respirator, and his heart was a slow beat. He was moved into another intensive care room with just four beds and two nurses. We had a few laughs because of all the drugs he was on. He would mention all these things. He told us the man in the next bed was carrying on with a lady who wasn’t his wife. Also, he said the other man was a deep sea diver, and worked for the CIA. Then he told me a little girl of nineteen had visited him and had cried. He asked Peter to visit her in the laundry room of the hospital. Both Peter and I looked at each other and said, “Oh, yes!” Well, to our surprise, she was working in the hospital laundry.
Then Harry went to the 10th floor and shared a room with another man. Harry’s liver problem was because he had a missing gene. But this man had destroyed his liver as a hippie taking drugs. After seven weeks, Harry was discharged and we stayed one more week in the apartment. John Munro and his wife Gudney had us over for dinner and others had us over also. We visited their church – it was so nice. We flew back to Seattle at the end of May. Harry was very brave. I had really believed the Lord would allow him to live.
It was very scary to look after Harry as he had three bottles still attached to him. Quite a few of his friends from Boeing were at the airport when we arrived home. Harry was hospitalized three or four times, but after two years decided he would return to work. He gradually got stronger. Things went very well for a while. We sold our house we had lived in for fourteen years and eventually built a very lovely house in Woodinville. We moved into our new house in 1992. Harry and I used to walk. He suddenly started getting chest pains. He thought it was indigestion. But, eventually Dr. Greene, his gastroenterologist, who looked after him here, sent him to a lady doctor – a cardiologist, Dr. Speck. She was very grave and said he had to have a bypass operation. So once again, the Spouses had more worry and anxiety. So Harry had a four-way bypass in 1994. He was off work for nine weeks. He eventually retired in June, 1995. He worked nonstop on Julia and Chuck’s house, adding two more rooms.
Olive on Holiday
Olive and David on holiday