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On June 7, 1997, the day of Tommy’s tragic auto accident, Christopher could do little without becoming tired. Chris still did not understand that his body was failing him. He always just thought that he felt very sleepy. His dad had to give him piggyback rides up the stairs to bed every night because of his lack of strength. Oxygen deprivation left Chris with terrible muscle and back pain.
On June 12, the day doctors officially declared Tommy dead, Tim Truxaw received a phone call from his father, Joe. Tim had been in his office trying his best to get some legal work done. His dad excitedly relayed to him something that had happened earlier that day with Tim’s aunt, Kathleen. She learned from a neighbor – who happened to be Donna’s uncle, about a horrible tragedy that had occurred to his grand-nephew Tommy. At some point, Donna’s uncle had mentioned to Kathleen that Tommy might become an organ donor. Immediately, Kathleen thought of her own grand-nephew, Chris.
Tim, though touched by the report, told his father that it did not work that way. There were lists, blood types, a whole protocol that the organ procurement agencies have to follow. But Tim’s father refused to listen to his son’s rationale. He made Tim call his aunt and her neighbor. Tim next found himself calling Donna’s father Joe.
When Joe picked up, he had no idea Timothy Truxaw existed. After hearing Chris’s story, he immediately wanted to help, but he did not know whether or not Tommy had been taken off life support. Joe did not want to call his daughter, knowing her current state. So Joe insisted that Tim call Mission Hospital instead.
After hesitating, Tim did call Mission Hospital. He managed to get transferred to the nurses’ station at Mission’s Hospital Pediatrics ICU. Nurse Nora was at the station with the SCOPC procurement transplant coordinator when the phone rang. Her normal shift usually fell between 7:00am to 7:30pm. But for some reason that day, she was still there when Tim called at 8 p.m. Tim made it clear to Nora that Donna did not know him but that a connection existed between the families. In the end, he wanted to know whether or not Tommy Weiss’s heart could go to his son, a boy who lived in San Diego. Nora put him on hold and turned to ask the coordinator if a family could designate an organ, specifically Tommy’s heart, to someone. She had never heard of it before, but the coordinator said yes, it could be done. Nora handed the phone over to the coordinator.
The transplant coordinator asked Tim pointed questions. She needed to know: What hospital placed Chris on the list? How long ago? Where was he on the list? What was his blood type? Never did she reveal any information about Tommy or whether he had been taken off life support. Looking through her registry, the coordinator told Tim that the two boys matched. They had the same blood type, O-positive, and the same chest sizes. Tim could not believe that his son had a chance of receiving a heart. Until then, he had been unwilling to believe that the series of phone calls had any real purpose. But Tim still had to get the consent of the family. He had to somehow get the parents to agree to give their son’s heart to his son. With nobody else to contact, Tim called back Tommy’s grandfather Joe. Joe could not make any promises, and he did not assure him that he would even call Donna. When Tim got off the phone, he did not know if he would even hear from Joe again, if he would get the consent.
What he didn’t know: Joe had already called his daughter Donna while Tim had been talking to people at Mission Hospital. Joe had distressed Donna when he told her about Tim and Chris. Her father was making it too personal. True, she had consented for Tommy be a donor, but she did not want any details about the people who were receiving the organs. She did not want a picture in her head of Tommy being cut open.
About an hour after talking to her father, Donna stepped out onto her balcony to greet the cloudless summer night. Even with tears in her eyes, she could see all the shooting stars. Tommy must have been throwing them across the heavens for her. Just hours before Donna had had to say goodbye to Tommy, to her 10-year-old son. Her only comfort was that someday she’d see him again when she, too, parted ways with the world.
The grieving mother, looking up at the sky, sipping white wine, could only ask, “Where are you? Where did you go Tommy?” It had been eight days since she saw Tommy alive. The phone rang in her bedroom. Everyone important knew that Donna needed the night to grieve, and that she would not be answering any calls. Donna ignored the ringing, permitting the answering machine to pick up the call. From her balcony, she heard the message.
“Hi Donna, I really need to talk to you. This is Nora at the hospital and I just need you to call me back right away.” For Nora to call and disturb her, it had to be urgent. Donna returned the phone call right away. If anyone else had called, she would not have bothered to respond.
“You don’t need to come down to the hospital; you don’t need to sign any papers. Just tell me if it is OK for Tommy’s heart to go to a boy somehow connected to your uncle.” It did not register in her mind that the boy Nora had just mentioned happened to be the same boy her father asked about an hour before. Donna answered yes without hesitation because Nora did not make it personal as Joe had. Donna felt as if she was only reconfirming her consent for Tommy’s being a donor. Nora had only needed one parent’s consent; because of their close relationship, the nurse had chosen to call Donna rather than Peter.
On June 12, Chris sat on the living room floor, next to the fireplace, playing with his Legos. Tim had just been notified of the consent. The father sat next to Chris and looked him straight in the eye. He said, “You’re not going to have time to finish this Lego project tonight. Your new heart has come and tonight you are going to receive it.”
Chris did not want to leave; he was working on his space shuttle. Could his father not see that he was in the middle of something? However, always being an obedient, shy kid, Chris nodded his head and got ready to go to the hospital. On the way, the Truxaws dropped off Jacquelyn at a close friend’s house. Chris had always carried two stuffed dogs with him to the hospital, Spot and Blue Eyes. When saying goodbye to Jacquelyn, Chris now gave Blue Eyes to his sister. Jacquelyn understood better than Chris did the severity of the heart transplant. Jacquelyn, though just 10, knew that her brother could die on the operating table.
Even though Children’s Hospital had doctors trained in transplant recovery, the hospital itself was not a certified transplant center. Thus the transplant surgery had to occur at Sharp Hospital. After receiving Donna’s consent, Sharp sent a team to Mission Hospital to retrieve and recover the heart. The doctors had to see Tommy’s heart and make sure it could be used for transplant. Even though they did not yet know that Tommy had a healthy heart, Chris still had to be readied to receive it. Arriving at the hospital around 9 p.m., Chris was prepared for surgery by the hospital staff. Shaved from head to toe and placed onto a gurney, Chris had to remain right outside the entrance to the operating room. The Truxaws had to wait for the phone call saying that the heart was adequate. Christopher’s longtime nurse knew that for every procedure, Spot had always accompanied Chris, tucked under his arm. The transplant room had to be completely sterile, and Spot was far from being sterile. To make Chris happy, she placed the stuffed dog into a sterile zip lock bag, so it could be wheeled into the operating room as well.
Sharp’s team of doctors and SCOPC’s team opened Tommy up at around 11:30pm. Pulled off of life support, Tommy’s body had to be put on a machine to keep the blood flowing to the organs. While Sharp only cared about the heart, SCOPC’s team also wanted Tommy’s liver, spleen, and pancreas. Despite Donna’s wish, doctors removed portions of the eyes as well. As soon as the doctors discovered that Tommy’s heart remained healthy, they called Sharp Transplant Hospital. With the heart in a cooler, the medical team drove down to San Diego in an ambulance. The heart had only four to six hours before it could no longer be used for transplantation.
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