A "Practice Run"

My son was knocking on the bedroom door. I woke up kinda groggy due to the side effects of some of my medications. All of the sudden the thought came to me: "I am late for work". But he told me: "Emory is on the phone". So I answered the phone, and the lady on the other side of the line asked me: "Is this Victor Delgado?", to which I answered, "Yes, I am". She, then, asked me if I could show up at Emory for an SKP Transplant. I was still drowsy, so I had to ask again what did she say. She proceeded then to say that it was for a simultaneous kidney/pancreas transplant. Also, she asked me if I could be at the hospital by 5:00 am. After recovering from the shock of the news, I asked for the time and she said it was 2:24 am. My instant response was that if it was possible to arrive at Emory around 5:30, close to 6:00. She mentioned the need to be there as close to 5:00 as possible. When I hung up the phone, my wife, Marta, was already calling my sister-in-law,Nancy, who is a vital member of our team and my official driver to Atlanta. She was already home within 20 minutes.
While those 20 minutes transpired, a comical chaos was taking place at home, trying to pack up the bare necessities needed for the surgery. We managed to leave my house around 2:50 am. Nancy turned the hazard blinkers on, which helped to put us in Atlanta at 4:18 am (it took us about an hour and 28 minutes to get there!).
We arrived at the hospital, I was admitted. and then a thousand questions followed my arrival (specially about my medical history).
Worth mentioning is the fact that since I was going to get prepped for surgery, I was already fasting--since 6:30, the evening before ( if I have known better, I would have pigged-out until midnight!).
Around 3 hours and 16 blood vials later, I was place in what it was going to be my recovery room. It was so exciting, specially when one of the recovery nurses would come from time to time to give us an update on the time of the almost taken place surgery. Different nurses would come in one from Kenya, another one from Pakistan...all to check my vitals (oh, I forgot to mentioned the X-Rays of my chest taken--during the which, I was trying to bribe the nurse into letting me hug the snack machine and get something to eat from it...however, it didn't work).
Amazingly, all throughout this time my wife, my sister-in-law, and I had just a sense of peace during this process that God only can provide.
Around 2:00 pm, the kidney surgeon came to tell us that another surgeon went to Macon to remove the organs of the donor that was on life support. He also mentioned that the earliest the surgery would take place would be 7:00 pm.We were patiently awaiting. But the hunger pangs was nothing easy to bear. Marta and Nancy had a small snack consisting of juice and crackers, while I was savoring a few packs of granulated sugar (my blood sugar became low during the wait).
Finally, around 5:20 pm, the surgeon came in indicating that he had a bit of
bad news: the kidney that he received was in good shape, but the pancreas wasn't. Therefore it was best not to proceed with the surgery. I believe that he was surprised when we reacted with such a sense of peace, even telling him that God is in control. He also said that I was on the top of the list, which at the same time was very exciting.
The fact of knowing that God loves us, he wants to give us the very best when we trust in Him, and knowing that He's in control of everything, made this journey, not only a good practice run, but also an exciting and hopeful one!