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Nneka: [00:00:00] Welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome to Behind the 90 with Nneka. Before we get started, as you know, I always like to explain what the 90 means. 90 percent of what we go through in life is about our past, and only 10 percent is about the here and now. which makes it very important to understand the 90 because the 90 represents our story.

Today's guest, guys, I have a very special treat. This is a story that is definitely going to pull at your heartstrings. And I am so honored that this couple agreed to share their stories. Cherie Blackwell is the author of An Unknown Angel's Gift, A Couple's Long Transplant Journey. When you think about it, we don't often talk about organ donations how that works.

I know [00:01:00] I haven't. I think I've been kind of nervous about it, or just ignorant about how that process works, because when you think about it, We pass. What do we do with our organs? We don't do anything. They're with us. And so this couple, like I said, a book was written in regards to their story. And like I said, I am so honored to have them here.

And again, the title of the book is An Unknown Angel's Gift, A Couple's Lung Transplant Journey. Welcome Robert and Cherie. Thank you so much for being here today. Like I said, I have been anticipating this interview because it's an interview unlike any other interviews that I've given, but I felt it was necessary.

Kelsey, like I said, she was the cause, you know, she was the reason for this introduction. And so I appreciate when she showed me about your story and that you wrote a book, I said, I got to [00:02:00] talk to them because I don't know much about organ donation. Transplants. But I think it's an important topic to discuss so that we can raise awareness, more awareness and build community around the topic because it is such an important topic.

So before we get started, I'm just going to just warm it up a little bit before we really get into it. But when I say reading the title of your book, Cherie, you said a couple's long transplant journey. You didn't say Robert. You said it was together. You guys went through this together. And when I saw that and even saying it, it just tugs at my heart because it speaks to the love that you have for your husband.

You guys were in this together. This was not just a Robert thing. This was a Cherie and the Roberts thing. So Robert, and again, I thank you, because without you, there's no, no this, and I appreciate you. sharing your story to [00:03:00] help other people. But like I said, to see that it was so intentional, like this was a story that they shared together.

So before we get into the book, I always like to understand how people met each other. How did you meet? How did you guys meet?

Cherie: So I met Robert through my ex and I was with him at the time with my ex at the time and Robert had come to our home. To pick up a piece of furniture or deliver a couch, pick up a piece of, yeah, pick

Robert: up a couch.

I

Cherie: can honestly say that when I saw him, it was electrifying and I knew, I knew there was something there. Like when you know someone is your knight in shining armor, people talk about that. Feeling you get when you meet someone. I knew he [00:04:00] was the one. He was mysterious. He was interesting. And I already had known that my current relationship was over.

And the rest is just, it just all fell into place. It was like, God brought him into my life at just the right time.

Nneka: That's a beautiful story. You say you knew, I knew it. And what a gift that is because to experience that not a lot of people experience that. And to have that gift to find your person and to know that without a shadow of doubt, that this is my person.

And you say it was something electrifying about him. Can you describe that?

Cherie: He was just, he had this aura about him. He was just mysterious and attractive, long hair, [00:05:00] and just inviting. Just, I wanted to get to know him. That's great. And he just, You know, as time went on, things just developed into this beautiful friendship. We had common interests. His family, you know, as time went on, his family made me feel welcome and everything just fell into place.

I felt like he got me out of something bad and it became a wonderful thing. We just became wonderful friends. He pursued me. He called me. He bought me cards. He just was like very interested and I was interested. Consistently just beautiful person. Consistently interested and it just blossomed into a wonderful friendship, a wonderful relationship that I'm very grateful for.

That's awesome. That's a great story.

Nneka: Robert, how does it feel to hear those wonderful things [00:06:00] about you? You're sitting there smiling. I'm

Robert: kind

Nneka: of

Robert: surprised. Thank you. Are you? That's the word she's using, like electrifying and mysterious, but when I saw her, I, I just had a feeling that she's the one, you know, I was, I think I was 40 years old and never married.

I have girlfriends here and there, you know, people I've dated and went out hung with, but I just waited for that right one to come along. And when I, when I seen her, I just knew it typically about the same way as she was the one for me. Yeah. And that's why I pursued what I pursued. She was married at the time, but I just had that feeling that we were going to be together.

So, so I, when I found out that they weren't going to stay together, Then I went all in opportunity, right? For sure. That not opportunity knocked and I went all in and just, there you go. Did everything I could to win her heart over.

Nneka: I like that .

Robert: Can you say that again for the men who are ? I said if you see something that you know is gonna [00:07:00] be your yours, you gotta go all in and give, put, put everything in to get it.

Robert, you could do a whole seminar on that. I, I, I, you know, I, I'd go over. In the winter time, I'd go and I'd go be on my way to work and it was snowing. I'd stop and scrape the windows of her car. So when she came out to go to work, her car was cleared off. No, I just did, I just did stuff, you know, wrote her little notes, wrote her letters,

Nneka: you knew she was the one,

Robert: I knew she was,

Nneka: there was no, there was nothing, nothing that kept you from pursuing her, nothing,

Robert: nothing,

Nneka: because sometimes what keeps us from pursuing each other, we get in our head about things and we get nervous.

You were 40 when you got married. No, I was older than that. I

Robert: got married.

Nneka: But you met her when you were 40, correct? Oh, I guess just before you just weren't ready to settle down or just, no, I was 29. 28. 28. Oh, okay. Very

Cherie: good.

Robert: So I guess I was attracted to

Nneka: younger women. . She's beautiful. But you guys are a beautiful looking couple.

You guys are a [00:08:00] good looking couple. Thank you. We were definitely made. I love it. I love it. Okay. If you had to describe, I know you said electrifying, you already, that brings me to my next question. If you had to describe Robert in one word, how would you describe him and why? But you said electrifying. But is there another word you would, how you would describe him?

Cherie: Hero. Hero. Wow. Explain that. Well, this goes into, you know, when he became sick and the disease progressed. Yeah. And he was told he had to wear oxygen, he had to accept that fact, he had to take an early retirement, it was early in our marriage, you don't expect to have

early in a relationship, in a marriage, one of you to become ill, where you have to caregive for that person and watch them struggle and accept things you see a lot of that with older couples or marriages where They've been together 30, 40 [00:09:00] years, they've retired, they've lived their life, they've raised their family, and one of them becomes sick, and, but to be young, as young as we were, and for me to watch him struggle and be on oxygen, not complain about it ever, make the best of it, still have a positive attitude, to me that's someone that is a hero.

Because they, in spite of what they're going through, they persevere. And they do everything to make it regardless

Nneka: of how they feel. I'm sure you had a lot to do with that too. Giving him the motivation, the energy and the drive to not only live for himself, but for you too. I'm sure Robert how would you describe her in one word?

Robert: My everything.

Nneka: Your everything.

Robert: She is. [00:10:00] She's, she's the perfect woman. She does everything around the house, for the house, for me. For herself, she takes care of herself. She makes her own money. She just does everything. She, and when I got sick, she, she did even more. I could, I did less. She did more. So match made in heaven.

It was meant to be,

Nneka: it was definitely was meant

Robert: to be.

Nneka: So God knew what you needed, Robert, and he knew what you needed as well. Yes. Right. So, you know, so that you've mentioned Roberts. Previous diagnosis. How long into the marriage, you know, how long into the marriage were you in the marriage before he was diagnosed with lung disease?

Cherie: It was about eight years.

Nneka: Yeah. Do you remember the setting where you were? How did you learn about it?

Cherie: Oh yeah. I remember it like it was yesterday.

Nneka: Well, [00:11:00] before you even answer that, Cherie, how did you learn that? So, you know, eight years in you were diagnosed with lung disease. How, how did it all

Robert: come about?

Actually, actually two years before we met, I had a, I had one of my lungs collapse, my left, my left lung. And I was at work and I went to the hospital and I thought it was pleurisy. And they told me that my lung collapsed, and I needed a lung reduction, and that was in 1996. So I had a half of my left lung removed that day, and recovered from that, went back to work.

Then we met in 97, early 97. And later in 97, I wasn't breathing so good again, so I went to the doctor, and he says, You're right. Lung needs to be reduced. So they took a third of my right lung out. So now I, and I had what they called bullas. They're blisters on my lungs. And one of them had popped on the [00:12:00] left when I had that, and the other one was ready to pop.

So he removed it. So I knew I had a lung disease of some kind. And he said, you have COPD. It's not too bad. Okay. And then in 2002 we married. We were together six years, we married, and six years later, while I was working, I couldn't breathe one day on the job. I was outside in the wintertime, and I was finding myself having a hard time breathing more and more.

And this time, I couldn't catch my breath, so I left work, we went to a pulmonologist and he put one of those things on my finger to measure my oxygen, and normal person's oxygen is 98 percent when they're breathing in that good. When I took a walk around down his hallway. Mine dropped to 70 and he said, Oh man, you need to be on oxygen 24 seven.

And I'll suggest to you a lung transplant. I know a person in Henry Ford that will take care of

Nneka: you. Okay.

Robert: So I [00:13:00] knew I had a problem with my lungs before you, before I met her. And she was, she was with me. And during the second surgery, so she's seen me struggle and, you know, and she was there the day they took the chest tube out and she says, the doctor said, Are you okay to be here for this?

And she goes, Oh yeah, I'm okay. And when he pulled it out, she about family because it was like four feet long inside my chest. She says, Oh my God.

Cherie: Yeah,

Robert: and

Cherie: he had told me that day. Physician said, you know, your husband's in good health, but he has very bad lungs. He shouldn't be smoking.

Robert: And I still

Cherie: smoke.

Yeah So he

Robert: continued to smoke. It's a hard thing to quit. Oh, yeah Before that I was, I did, I dabbled in drugs and I did drugs for a long time I quit those and I

Nneka: still smoke cigarettes. Yeah, I'm sure it's a hard habit to kick once you start. Mm hmm Yeah, sure. So that's how you develop

Robert: lung disease, lung cancer?

It wasn't lung cancer, it was COPD and emphysema. [00:14:00] Never had lung cancer.

Nneka: Okay, never lung, okay, COPD. Yes. Okay, great. Not great, but it wasn't, so was that, what's the, so it wasn't lung cancer, it was COPD. That's chronic.

Cherie: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Okay. chronic emphysema. But leading up to that, he had always had lung issues.

Like, he was talking about those air filled blisters that fill the lungs in the 90s when he had the two reduction surgeries. So, leading up to and continuing to smoke made his disease progress. If, had he stopped smoking, And having those two lung reduction surgeries, the lungs rejuvenated because they had cut part of them out.

However, by continuing to smoke, kept his lungs diseased. And he ended up chronic COPD emphysema, [00:15:00] which in turn when we went, when he was getting worse and passed out at work or not passed out, but excuse me, lost your breath at work. And that's when we went to the pulmonologist and he ran testing and did scans and, and tested his pulse ox and said, you know, this is not good.

You know, after he had done some x rays and testing, sent him to some other physicians, but that day he had said, I need you to be on oxygen. And that was the day that I spoke of earlier, where I'll never forget it. When he said. You're going to need to be on oxygen and seeing the look on Robert's face, you know, that, that's all about acceptance for a person when they're sick or have any kind of disease and a doctor telling you, this is what you have, this is what you need to do.

Robert wanted to work another 10 years and in his field, he couldn't wear an oxygen tank. So I knew that was going to be very [00:16:00] difficult

Robert: to

Cherie: accept. Yeah,

Robert: I was 31 years in the factory at work at Forbes. I wanted 10 more years because I just got a great job, a cleaner mover in a different building, a clean building, and I had to retire, they told me you can't, you have to retire.

Nneka: So you were forced into retirement. I was forced to

Robert: retire at the age of 51, or 50,

Nneka: 51. 51, okay. So before that, were you very, were you guys very active, doing a lot of hobbies? Oh yeah. Yeah. Like, what are some things that you guys We

Cherie: went rollerblading, we went hiking, we traveled, we took the muscle car out.

We

Robert: had a couple muscle cars and we always went to car shows. And

Cherie: lots of walking and

Robert: Traveling, Vegas. Yeah, we love

Cherie: to travel. Just spending time with family and friends and

Nneka: Road trips.

Cherie: Yeah.

Nneka: Okay, so once you got the diagnosis what was the prognosis? What did they say? These are, [00:17:00] this is the prognosis if you do this.

This is the treatment.

Cherie: Well, we had went to Henry Ford to see the lung transplant team and it started out as a long round of testing and questions and that in and of itself, I mean, that was a lot of appointments and, and then there was a meeting with the family where they wanted to discuss treatment and prognosis.

Obviously medicine changes constantly. So I don't know per se that they gave like a prognosis like you're going to live this long or, but I do remember that the surgeon saying we need to do this within two years.

Robert: Dr. Nami came in and says we need to get you a set of lungs in two, within two years, or you're not going to make it because my lungs are pretty bad shape.

13

Cherie: percent capacity. So they, everyone that is, has a normal set of lungs has 100 percent capacity. [00:18:00] Someone that's on oxygen, it's like breathing through a straw.

Nneka: Oh, okay.

Cherie: So his whole one side was not working and the other side was just at 13%.

Robert: Okay.

Cherie: So him being on oxygen is what made it so he could make it through each day.

And they would have them do these walks in the hallway. That was very scary because any exertion or walks will drop your oxygen levels when you can't breathe and you're supposed to be in the nineties. Well, his would drop to like the sixties and seventies and his fingers and toes would be. Tingly.

Purple and

Robert: tingling. Hair, every scratch. Wow. Blood pressure

Cherie: would drop. It was a very scary time. So, when you ask about prognosis. The surgeon

Nneka: said within two years. Within two years. So, and this was in, what, 2009, 2008, 2009? 2008. Yeah. That he said that to you. Yeah. In 2008, they said, this is what we need to do.

Yeah. And so, you got on the [00:19:00] transplant list,

Robert: right? After they check every part of your body. I mean, they test everything, anything and everything.

Cherie: Skin eyes. Probably the only thing

Robert: they didn't look at is my toenails. But

Cherie: really,

Robert: but they check everything, you know, to, to get, to get you on the list and just to know everything's perfect.

Like my body was perfect except for, except like my lungs. Your lungs. Okay. So I was in the greatest of health when my lungs sucked.

Nneka: So 2008 you got on the donor list? Yeah. On the transplant list, correct. Right. I'm sorry, the transplant list. Thank you.

Robert: And they said two years. The doctor suggested that it should be done within two years

Nneka: that you should have a donor right in two years.

How do they? estimate that

Cherie: well, there's Lots of criteria they look at The patient's lab work how well they manage their day to day activities. But I think a big part of it is just looking at the patient and their lungs and their condition, [00:20:00] their diagnosis. And they look at like a certain scoring system based on the diagnosis.

Many patients with COPD and emphysema have a very low score that they use to calculate when they could possibly be transplanted or be

Robert: a recipient. UNOS, United Network of Organ Sharing, they have a scoring system for transplant. So they have anywhere from 1 to 100, 100 being the worst. My score, I think, was 32.

So people that are in the hospital on oxygen and that, their score is maybe 85, 90. So they're going to get it first. very much. You know, the offers. Okay. People, people that are in the middle, if something becomes available out there, the set of lungs comes available from a donor, the person that's an organ donor, they'll send offers to hospitals and some hospitals will accept them, some won't.

Nneka: Okay.

Robert: So [00:21:00] it's like a roll on the dice, you know, how lucky can you be?

Cherie: They also said that he was very tall and thin. So we might be waiting a lot longer because he was

Nneka: tall and thin, because he's got a long chest

Cherie: cavity and long lungs and a lot of the donors were petite. A lot of the offers that came in were from petite donors.

So, and they even had said at one point that it might come from out of state and not Michigan.

Robert: Every, every time I went for an x ray for, for the doctor's sake, you know, he wanted to, like the surgeon wanted to see my lungs and every month I'd go back and they'd take x rays. I always, they take an x ray and they say, well, you can go.

And I said, I'm not leaving. They said, why not? I said, because you're going to need another picture. Well, she goes, how do you know that? I said, it's because every time you're printing her, you got to take two pictures because my lungs are so long. You only get half of it. She goes, no way. So she looks, she goes, yep, need another picture.

Nneka: Wow. So that is so interesting. I never thought about that, that you have to be somewhat of the stature of the person,

Robert: that

Nneka: the person [00:22:00] who's donating, there has to be some type of resemblance.

Cherie: Not just your blood work or you know, all the bodily things, but. The lungs are hard, or liver, pancreas, when they look at the chest cavity.

Okay,

Nneka: so 2008 they said that, they gave you that two year mark, you're probably pretty hopeful. Like, okay good, so they have this system, it's going to be two years. So they give me a beeper,

Robert: a pager, and they says when this pager goes off, call, call the number and you'll come in for a transplant. So you wore a

Nneka: beeper.

Robert: So I wore a pager for two years.

Nneka: A pager for two years.

Robert: And, every, for the first two years on April 1st, I would call that number on the pager. And it would go off, and she'd get all excited, and I'd say, April fools! Robert, you did not do that! I find that laughter is the best medicine. Everything that we did in this journey, from 2008 until today, [00:23:00] we, we make it funny.

We put humor in everything. But I did it two years in a row, and she hated me for it.

Cherie: Wow. Cause, yeah, but And every phone call I got that said 313, you know, I'm at the office, or wherever I'm at, it's like, Because once you get that

Robert: call, how much time do you have? They say you had up to, they said, like, if we ever traveled, we had to be within four hours of the hospital.

So you'd have at least four hours to get to

Nneka: the hospital. So you would need to be traveling by car and they didn't want you in a plane or anything. We couldn't

Cherie: plan any trips that were over four hours. Over four hours.

Nneka: But you could fly. We could, I could have. You could,

Cherie: but if you went anywhere, you had to make sure there was a transplant center nearby because if he had any issues,

Robert: This is after the transplant.

Cherie: Don't jump ahead, Cherie!

Robert: LAUGHS We took a couple vacations. We still had

Cherie: to plan with oxygen.

Robert: My sister and brother in law came in town and we went up there. We were like four hours away up north [00:24:00] on a vacation, just waiting for the call.

Cherie: But it was stressful with the tanks. Yeah, I had to take oxygen tanks

Robert: and machines with me.

Cherie: Make sure everything worked. And still make sure you had somebody close if you needed care.

Nneka: So there was a lot of prep to going places and doing things. But it's nice that you didn't stop your life. No, I tried. It's

Cherie: important not to. My wife would not let

Nneka: me.

Robert: She planned stuff all the time just to keep me active.

You know, family gatherings or little parties or casino trips or something, you know, just, she always had me going, you know, I couldn't just sit back and poor me, poor me. She kept me going. She'd load up the truck, we're going here, load up the truck, we're doing this. Were you ever

Nneka: resistant? Were you open to it?

Were you like, I was always,

Robert: I was always open.

Nneka: You know, this is, she's doing this for us, not for me. For us, like you said, a couple's lungs.

Robert: She had a family gathering one time. Where she had all her family come in and it was out in Highland, Michigan. And I was on [00:25:00] oxygen. I had to take my, my oxygen maker and a 100 foot hose and a generator to plug it in so I could enjoy the family gathering with everybody.

It was a

Cherie: reunion I planned for

Robert: my side of

Cherie: the family. Like we brought people, cousins in from all over and it was

Robert: Arizona, Florida, Washington.

Cherie: prep process, but it was beautiful. It was wonderful, and they were all grateful. But we made it work, and he did everything he could that day to help, and that's the kind of person he is, too.

He's got a huge heart, and he always wants to help people, and make things, you know, work better. Possibly than what they already are,

Nneka: she's giving. So you did, I love that, that you didn't stop life. There had to be, so there was, was there hope? And I'm sure there were some times where you were discouraged.

Can you talk about those times where you were hopeful? Can you talk about those times where you were discouraged? Because 2008, yeah, you're on that list. [00:26:00] You're waiting, right? And let's say 2019, 10 comes, that's what, two years, Mark. Still waiting. Still waiting. What was the process? What were you, what was your thinking, Robert?

Robert: I'm just waiting. Just waiting for that phone call. I, I basically just went on with my life, you know, and kept the phone handy.

Nneka: Yeah. You had your

Robert: oxygen? On oxygen. On oxygen. 24 7 on oxygen. I had a, I had an oxygen maker in the basement of the house. Okay. And I ran a 50 foot hose up through the duct, the air conditioning duct, and walked around the house that way.

And when I, I still did chores around the house, I cut the grass still. You did. I cleaned the gutters, which my pulmonologist, my team, my transplant team says, You don't have to go up on the roof and clean gutters. I said, nobody else is going to do it. I said, I'm not going to ask somebody to do my job. So I put an extra 50 foot hose on there and climb up on a roof and I'd clean gutters.

And they'd [00:27:00] say, well, after two years, they'd say, well, we're sorry you're waiting so long. You know, I said, well, it's no big thing because medicine gets better, the operation will get better, technology gets better. As long as I can live my life, I'm not really worried about the transplant. When it comes, it comes.

And every year they'd say, I'm sorry you're waiting. I said, I don't care, I'm waiting. I think six months before we got the call. I was done. I gave up. I just threw

Nneka: my

Robert: towel in. So

Nneka: how long did it take? I mean, because they said it was a two year time frame.

Robert: Well, I went past the two year time

Nneka: frame. You went past it.

Eight years he was on oxygen.

Robert: I went to a three year, to a four year, to a five year. And this whole time I'm doing pulmonary rehab and working out three days a week. Because you've got to be strong for a transplant. That's right. You have to have some muscle, your muscles, and you have to be able to get out of bed the second day.

For So you got to be really strong and in tip top shape. So I, I go to pulmonary rehab three times a week, religiously. I don't [00:28:00] care. You know, I, if I had to pay for it, you know, insurance covered so much and then you had to pay for the rest, but you had to go. So I did it. And when I was doing this, I was mentoring other people to, that are on oxygen and that and tell them, you know, this is what I'm going through.

This is what I'm looking at. And then I meet a guy that's 32 years old. He comes in and he says, They said I want you to meet Jamie because Jamie's gonna get elicit for our heart, a lung transplant. So I, and he was young, he has two young children, and I explained to him what it was, and we started hanging out.

We had similar interests. He had a great, he had a muscle car. I had muscle car. So we hung out and I, I mentored him into the process. So we, we kind of watched out for each other.

Nneka: Okay. So you were on the donor list for eight years. What carried you guys through the tough times

Robert: each other? She carried me, I carried her.

I know she had moments where she broke down and cried and just, you [00:29:00] know, prayed like crazy and that. But, you know, I couldn't do anything.

Nneka: What did those tough days look like, Cherie, for you? It's hard to think

Cherie: back. It just seems like it all went by so quickly in some aspects. But When I think of the tough days, I just relied on other people, you know, I, I would exercise or do yoga or talk to my friends or family or arrange events like he talked about just to keep that positive energy and that interaction with people, I think, really helped having the laughter.

And I think the more we saw family and friends and they saw him on Oxygen and saw us together, they would become more inquisitive and understanding and really supportive. Just having that support system helped. My father was a huge support system.

[00:30:00] We lost him unexpectedly, but he was huge. He came to all of our support meetings.

I know when Robert lost his father, he became very close to my father, and it meant a lot. So he was a huge, huge help.

We would see him at the car shows, and at his house, and it just really helped to talk to him. He had a lot of good words, it was. My mother was very sick at a young age, and I think my father could relate to what we were going through. He really gave us a lot of good insight and positive energy. And that is huge to have support when you're going through anything.

Absolutely. You need that support. So, for me, the tough times was being [00:31:00] able to talk to him. And other friends and family

Nneka: and being with

Cherie: friends and family,

Nneka: not shutting down and isolating. Right? You

Cherie: cannot isolate. It's important to have somebody that you can talk to. It doesn't have to be a therapist or a doctor, but it can be because give you great insight.

But just having a support system, I think is huge and all this. And we learned that at our monthly transplant meetings. That we still go to this day and help coordinate with the doctors and the team. We learn something new every time. We started going when he was on oxygen and we still continue to go every month and mentor people.

And on social media, many different groups, you know, we just give that input and advice. And it helps people to know that they're not the only one going through something. You know, and even if you talk to [00:32:00] someone that isn't going through anything, but just to have that ear for me it's always been just to have a friend or family member that I can sit and talk to or laugh with or shop with or, you know, just a little bit.

And many times, you know, when you're the caregiver going through something, people don't ask you how you're doing. I remember my doctors would be like, aren't you angry? You know, aren't you bothered by this? And I was like, no, I. I want this to be successful and, you know, I would like to think that if, if we were in, you know, opposite shoes, that he would be the same way, that he would want to instill positive energy in me and want to be uplifting and helpful and just to get you through until you get that transplant and you feel better and we can live the life that we want to live and feel better.

Nneka: Yeah.

Cherie: I just wanted him to feel better.

Nneka: So family is key. Yes. [00:33:00] Continuing on with life is key because it's not a death sentence. It's not. You can live. So Robert is eight years. Did you feel, did you ever feel discouraged? Like, is this ever going to happen? Did you ever feel like you wanted to give up?

Robert: And just before the call in 2008, I was done.

Nneka: You

Robert: were done. I told Cheri, I said, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. I mean, 2015, I'm sorry, right before the call, right before the break, right before the call. I said, I don't want to go to rehab no more, I'm tired of waiting, and I turned it over to my faith.

Nneka: To your faith. And I

Robert: just prayed on it.

Nneka: How did it make you feel to hear him say that, Cherie? That he feels like, you know what, I'm done.

Cherie: It was difficult, but I remember saying, turn to your faith. He was raised in a very faithful, caring family that relied on [00:34:00] God. I've always turned to my faith as well, and I also reiterated that. I said, you need to turn to your faith, turn to God, turn it over to God, and he did.

I didn't know that he did. And the day he got his surgery, he told me that he had to go to God. It's just so emotional.

Nneka: Tell me about the time you got the call. I want to hear both your, you know, feelings, Robert.

Robert: Well, we, we were sitting there, it was right after dinner, and I just bought a bottle of that cinnamon liquor.

Nneka: Cinnamon liquor? That sounds good. I've never heard of it.

Robert: No, the cinnamon one. Anyway, I just bought this and I was gonna try it. So I was getting ready to pour a shot of it. And her phone started going off and she had a flower for her transplant coordinator. So you didn't have the beeper on anymore? No, [00:35:00] they actually quit using the beeper two years into it.

They just went to the phone call. Oh, the phone call. It was driving me crazy because every three months I'd have to change the batteries and it was costing me money. Right. So this flower came up on her phone and I said, Cherie, Fidesz is calling you. Who did you call? Her name was Fidesz, the nurse. Okay, the nurse.

So I said, Fidesz she wants, but she answered it. She picked it up and she said, hello. And she says, is Robert there? She said, yeah, because we have a set of lungs for him. And I, and right there, I didn't take the drink and I was like, oh my God. She says how, how soon can you be down here? I said, I can be there in 10 minutes.

You were on a helmet, you weren't

Nneka: traveling.

Robert: And She says, well, we want you to come down tonight because we have a set of lungs for you. And this was in 2015. 2015, December the 8th of 2015.

Cherie: 9 o'clock at night.

Robert: Watching a hockey game, getting ready to do a shot, and the phone rings, and now my prayers are answered.

I [00:36:00] don't remember what happened in the hockey game, but Thank

Nneka: God.

Robert: But we were Red Wings fans too. We did a lot of Red Wings games. I did a YouTube video for Gift of Life in front of Joe Louis at the time. to promote organ donation. So we got called in and we, she was supposed to drive because they said the patient was not supposed to drive to the hospital.

But she was in such a bad condition. Balling nerves running around the house, grabbing this and grabbing it. Just she was calling people. She was spastic . I was calm as a cucumber . I was at the back door just waiting. I said, sure. Are we ready? And it's like, ah, calling people. And, and we got in the truck and I drove and I was down to town in 15 minutes.

Cherie: I had a bag packed for every season. Every year. Oh yes. Wow. And I grabbed the wrong bag. I grabbed the summer bag and we're here it is December. I remember just, yeah, like you said, running room to room and making phone calls and what did my brother say when I called him?

Robert: Oh [00:37:00] yeah, he says so you're going to do it, right?

I says, well, that's what I practice for. He says, well, this is what you practice for, so you're going to do it, right? I said, absolutely, we're on our way. Absolutely. And then we called my brother and him and his wife came to the hospital right away and, Her father and his girlfriend came, and then they went in there and they What was the prep?

I

Nneka: mean, how was the prep

Robert: of it all? They cut my hair, because I had hair down now. I cut your hair. Well, I was like, she cut my hair. Because I donated my hair to Lasky Love.

Cherie: A few times. A few

Robert: times, because I grew it and cut it and donated it.

Cherie: Oh, that's nice.

Robert: And we put a hair tie on it and cut it and to donate it.

And the lady, the intake nurse was like, are you sure you want to do that? And I said, yeah, I want to do that. You know, just cut it off. I had a terrible haircut.

Cherie: I would say that PrEP experience was probably one of the best hospital experiences I've ever had. They were so on key and so on point, and these nurses were spot [00:38:00] on.

They had all their machines, everything ready, getting you prepped, shaved in your gown

Robert: you know, the PICC lines set up and all that, everything

Cherie: ready to roll. And I remember telling him what he, when they sent 'em down the hall, I said, there's no looking at the light when you get put under. I said, you're coming back to me and we have a life to live.

So you do good. And he was in surgery for eight hours from midnight until eight the next morning. And my father and stepmom and his brother and his wife and I, we all sat all night in the waiting room and I held his parents rosaries and stayed awake the whole time. And the nurses were kind enough to text me every hour to keep me updated.

I remember them saying, you know, the lungs have arrived, we have made the cut. And I had the timeline in my book of that, and I just remember that whole night. And [00:39:00] there was a point, there was a couple hours that had passed where I hadn't heard from them. And the surgeon had told me that morning when he came to talk to me, said that was when we were trying to get the old lungs out because he was so sick.

His lungs had shucked suction to his chest cavity and shifted. So they had to get those out, put them on a heart bypass machine, and put the new lungs in. And then they said once they put the new lungs in, it was beautiful. He did so well.

Robert: I don't remember that night at all.

Nneka: It's like a rebirth, I'm sure it had to. I can't even imagine what you must have felt like or when you, like you said, you were out of it. You were out of it. But Cherie, when they came to tell you that things went perfectly, it was just, I, I,

Cherie: I just knew that he was going to do wonderful. I just had that feeling all night.[00:40:00]

And then when the sun came up and I looked out, I was just praying. I said, I know he's doing it. And when the nurse calls in, he was in recovery and he's doing well, and the doctor will be out to speak with you. And then when we went to the room, I prepped, prepared myself because they said he's not going to look well.

Because he's going to be pumped up on steroids. He's not going to So I'm like, I have myself all prepped. Okay, I gotta psych myself up. It's not gonna look like Robert. I go in and he looks fine. They

Robert: say he was supposed to look like the Michelin Man. And

Cherie: you did fine. I look

Robert: just like me, I guess.

Cherie: I mean, they had like poles, five poles on each side of him and all these IVs and two or three tubes in each side and

Robert: Strapped down to the bed.

Cherie: Yeah, it was, you know, obviously difficult, but when he woke up he was like Was he smiling?

Robert: I had a tube in my throat to help me breathe. [00:41:00] And When I opened my eyes, there was a an Asian nurse at the foot of my bed, and when she sees me open my eyes, she goes, You're not in China no more. And I'm like And she said that, and I remember that.

And then I looked over, and my friend that was from the rehab group, young man who was on the transplant list. He was standing on the left, and I'm looking at him, and I'm just going, trying to motion to him, like, get this thing out of my throat. I can't talk.

Nneka: You can't talk, right? So, and

Robert: he, he understood what I was, what I was saying, and she says, you know, you're not supposed to be awake yet either.

You know, it's a little early for you to be awake, and then they came in, I think, within an hour, and they pulled the two out of my throat. I couldn't really talk without a sore throat. I was on, like, one liter of oxygen. They went

Cherie: it off within.

Robert: And then they had it off within a couple hours.

Cherie: Yeah.

Robert: And I was breathing on my own.

This is beautiful. And all I could say for the next four weeks was, I mean, every time I took a breath or something, I just looked around. [00:42:00] Immediately. Immediately. The next, the next morning I was up and walking. So I spent the night in my bed, all these tubes in that, IVs and stuff. And the next day I, they had me get out of bed, put all my stuff on a wheelchair and I grabbed on the wheelchair and we walked the halls.

Nneka: Oh, wow.

Robert: Okay. So it was like

Nneka: Immediately.

Robert: That's why you do pulmonary rehab. To keep yourself strong. So you can get out of bed that next day, right away. One thing

Cherie: about patients though with lung transplant is they have to kind of teach themselves to breathe normal again, because they struggled for so long.

So when they get new lungs, they're, they have so much air, so they have to learn to use their diaphragm again to breathe normal. Like we're, people that are healthy, we're just every day, but when they're on oxygen, it's a struggle for them. And they might have to turn it up for certain activities or [00:43:00] sleeping, they turn it down, but then they get these new set of lungs or heart and they, they feel so much better.

But so many patients have said it takes time to, to breathe normal. Do you know what I'm saying? Like when they talk about that with the

Robert: No, you had to learn how to breathe again. And you had to cough a lot because you had to cough stuff up.

Cherie: Yeah.

Robert: And you always had to have a pillow against your chest because they cut me from right side to left side and opened me up like a clam shell.

88 stitches. 88 stitches. 88 staples. Staples, excuse me. Staples. And, and, so when you cough it hurt. So you put this pillow there to take the pressure. To kind of press, you know. Yeah. I did that, I had to use that for a couple weeks. But not my never complained. I think it was on my fourth day. I had a setback.

I had a hematoma in my hip. Okay, so I have a, a leg. My leg, I couldn't, I couldn't keep it straight. I had to bend it. So I was holding it up against my chest. It was just hurting so bad on my sit, my hip. [00:44:00] So they took me down for an x-ray to find out what was wrong with me because there was, my hip was killing me.

And when they took me down for X-Ray, the technician grabbed my leg. He goes, can you straighten your leg? I said, no. And he just grabbed it and straightened it. And I just, I just cried. And the nurse said, you can't do that. You don't know what's going on. And I wanted to hit him, but I couldn't. So they did an x ray and they said, you have a hematoma in your hip.

We don't know where it's from. It's a big pool of blood. And they said, well, we'll give you some pain medicine and antibiotics. And then a couple of surgeons came into the room after we got back to my room and they says, Well, we want to take that hematoma out. And she says, Well, why? And he goes, Because it needs to be removed.

She says, Have you done this before? He says, Yeah, we've done it twice. And how successful? He goes, Well, neither one of them walked again. So she says, Well, we're not getting it taken out. So then our doctors came in and we talked about it. And they said, Well, hell no, don't take it out. Just let it, let it dissolve by itself.

It'll go [00:45:00] away. You know, you just keep up with the pain medicine. You know, to get through it, but it'll dissolve. Did you kick that, whoever that nurse, that doctor, out of the room? Oh, yeah. Those two doctors, I was like, man, what's going on here? And

Cherie: our, his team was like, we just had major surgery. This is

Robert: foolish.

This is day three. Day three and they want to open you up down here now. No way.

Cherie: And it was lodged up like behind the kidney and the nurse was, or the doctor was explaining the location and everything.

Nneka: How long were you in the hospital for recovery?

Robert: Almost six weeks.

Cherie: Six weeks. We

Robert: spent Christmas there, New Year's there.

Cherie: We were known as the comedy couple on the floor.

Nneka: Really? I can, I can imagine that. I'm going to be honest. Red

Cherie: wing hats and outfits in and New Year's Eve.

Nneka: I can believe that. So December 8th, 2015, you went in for the transplant and you came home. Came

Robert: home on January 6th, 2016.

Nneka: January 6th, 2016. Okay. So what was life like?

I mean, you had spent eight [00:46:00] years, you know, with oxygen tank.

Robert: I

Nneka: mean, still living life. But what was life like?

Robert: Well, I think for a year, I always pulled out my cannula that wasn't there anymore. I always wonder, where's my cannula? But, you know, it's in the back of your mind, because eight years I wore it.

So I was constantly doing that. Life was so much better because when I was on oxygen, I couldn't snowball and I liked, I loved to snowball. I loved the winter. Did you? So, when we, when we come home from the hospital on January 6th, I was in the truck and they backed up the driveway and I had a plan on how to get in the house and all that because I was still a little bit wobbly on my, my legs because the hematoma kept me in, kept me in the bed for like two weeks.

So my muscles deteriorated. But when we got to the house on January 6th, it was like, 30 degrees out. I opened up that door and I just sat there and breathed that fresh cold air. I could never, I couldn't do it previously. I was on oxygen. [00:47:00] I sat there probably 20 minutes like that, just breathing this fresh air.

So I had a plan. I'm going up the steps, getting in the house, but when I started going up the steps, my plan went away. I got two railings and I got to the top of the steps and I didn't, this railing was out of the way because there was a door here. My plan was to take the glass out of the door so they could still reach the railing.

But we didn't do that. And then I fell. I fell right inside the door. And they're all going, oh no, oh no, no. You know, it's like staples in here. But I was okay. They helped me get up and get in the house and get to my chair. And life was a little bit tough for a couple months. I still had to go back down to the hospital once a week for, you know, X rays and all that.

A nine

Cherie: hour check, blood checks. I

Robert: had a nurse come into the house to do blood check and blood work. And

Cherie: PT came to the house for a month. I was still off work, so that was good. You know, being able to assist with all the appointments and care, meals.

Robert: And I think I [00:48:00] stayed in the bubble for six months. And people came over, they had to wear a mask.

They couldn't come over there because a lung transplant out of all the transplants. The lungs are the only one that is inside you, but the outside world affects it because you're breathing. It's unprotected. You know, heart transplant is protected, liver is protected. But

Nneka: the lungs Lungs,

Robert: you're breathing in the outside world.

Any kind of, so many coughs, that goes in the air, if I breathe it, then I have an infection or I could get sick, very sick. His immune

Cherie: system's compromised the rest of his life, so he has to take anti rejection drugs to make sure. Any, any type of cold or flu or infection can be harmful, obviously, to anyone, but to him or someone who's transplanted, it can be life threatening.

Nneka: So, it's been, what, nine years? Eight years and months. Eight. Oh, 'cause right December, right. Be nine years in December. About six months. Yeah. Be nine years in December. Before I even ask more [00:49:00] about that, did you guys know the Don, did you guys get to meet the donor family? Did you know who the donor was? I'm looking at that, but

Robert: we we didn't at the time.

So

Nneka: how did that, how did that come about?

Robert: So we, we, we knew about, see, I had a, my brother's father-in-law had a lung transplant. Previous to me being sick in that. So I seen him on oxygen struggle, get a transplant, do really well. And when I got listed, He introduced us to the Lung Transplant Support Group at Henry Ford, and he was like 15 years out at the time.

But every month, wherever he was, he was usually in Florida on vacation. He would fly in for that one day, for that two hour meeting, because he was giving back to the community. Right. So he shared his stories and that. So he got us to start going every, every month, once a month, to these meetings. But he'd come in for, just for the day, or, you know, he'd get his labs done and that.

Yeah. Go to the meeting and then you go back on [00:50:00] vacation. So

We did the meetings every month for until today. We're still doing them and I forget to question

Nneka: No, I was saying in terms of the the organ don't Do you did you get to find out who the old organ donor was? I think it

Robert: was a year and a half after the transplant I got up one morning and I told you I said I wrote a letter to the donor family

Nneka: So they know so it's a it's open for you to know who the donor that's

Robert: where I was going with this When when my brother's father in law He would go to the, they had what they call the transplant games, like, like the Olympics for the transplant, transplant people.

And they have them all over the United States, different areas. And he'd go and he wrote his donor. Family over and over and they never answer. So he was at the transplant games and they were having lunch And this other couple was having lunch and they started talking and they were a donor Family. Okay, and my father in law was a donor [00:51:00] recipient.

Okay, and they'd never heard from their recipient and he never heard from his donor. So they adopted each other. So he started writing them letters, thanking them and talking to them and calling them, acting like their, their daughter was his daughter and they acted like this guy was the recipient.

Nneka: But it wasn't.

No, but

Robert: they just, they just did it because they didn't, they wanted a recipient family and a donor family. They connected that way. Oh, so he, he told me that he wrote letters and never got an answer. So I got up one day and I said, Cherie, I wrote a letter to the donor family And it's got to go through a gift of life.

You send it to them, they read it, make sure there's no, no names or anything in it. Just your know, your thankfulness. And then they'll send it to the donor family. And now they can choose to accept it and read it and write back or they can just ignore it. So she, at the same time I told her I wrote a letter, she says, I wrote one too.

So we exchanged letters and we read it and we started crying because what she, her words and what my words, it was just having [00:52:00] effects on us. So we sent a letter and I think how many months later? It was four months? Four months later we got a letter in the mail from Gift of Life and it was a letter from the, The donor family.

So we read that and they wanted to meet us and they told us that their son, you know, I, I, did they say his name in the letter? No, they couldn't. No. They just said that it was their son and. You know, we'd like to meet you, you know, we're in, we're close or we're in the area. We didn't really know where they were.

So we did this like five times, five letters, and finally gift of life realized that we want to meet them and they want to meet us. So they sent us a release form where we sign our name and say, saying, yeah, we release our name and address and phone number to them and they did the same to us. So now we know who they were and I looked them up online, who he was.

Nneka: And who do you, can you disclose that, who he was? Yeah, his name

Robert: was William Wayne McGee. He was 33 years old [00:53:00] and he had a fatal gunshot wound to the back of his head where he was brain dead. And he was on life support Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, five days. And they didn't know he was an organ donor, but gift of life showed up at the hospital because he was brain dead.

And they kept talking to the uncle. Because his name was McGee also. And his, my daughter's mother was going, why the hell do they keep talking to Odie and she ain't talking to me, I'm his damn mother. And then they realize, oh, you're his mother, so they start talking to her. And she says, hell yeah, if he's a donor, we're going to donate his organs.

I didn't know he was an organ donor, but that's that's alright with me, I want him to do that. That's what my son wants, that's what he gets. So we sitting there one Saturday morning having coffee and tea and the phone rings and she goes, It's the donor mother. I says, Answer it.

Nneka: So how did you guys know it was the donor mother?

Cause [00:54:00] they, we have caller ID. But how did, but cause you found out their names. Yeah, because they, we exchanged names. Right, so you knew the names

Robert: at this point. Right. So they got, she got our letter, our release form with our name and number and she called right away. She called. She said, Hi, this is Angie.

Hi, Angie. Hi, Angie. And she was up there with her sister, Zizi. And this is Zizi! And we started talking. We talked for like three hours. Like we knew him all our life. Oh

Nneka: my gosh, I just It

Robert: was just a crazy morning, you know. We talked and talked.

Cherie: And then every week after that we talked.

Robert: And every week after that.

And then we decided that we were going to meet for a dinner, a meal. Their family, my family. Do you get together for a meal and meet? So we, we made an arrangement to meet at this restaurant where some of my family came, a lot of her family came, like 17 of us, some of Cherie's family, there's probably 17 of us and we met and we sat at this restaurant for another four hours just talking and getting to know each other and [00:55:00] they brought me a plant of peace lilies out of it, a peace lily plant and a little rock that said breathe.

And, and I, we took a stethoscope. So they could all hear William's, they call him Hug, or 2Gs, God's Gift, or So So Calm. He had a lot of nicknames. Everybody in the family has a nickname. It's really crazy. Oh

Nneka: really?

Robert: Everyone

Nneka: has a nickname.

Robert: So so they could hear his lungs inside me. You know, cause I really want them to hear his lungs and know that he's still alive.

He's living inside me now.

Cherie: And he saved five lives, including Robert's. He saved five lives, including Robert's. And

Robert: another thing that we didn't cover was, when the hospital called and said they had lungs, those lungs were offered to five hospitals.

Cherie: We were number five. We were number

Robert: five on the list. So this wasn't a sure thing.

This wasn't like, hey, we got lungs because [00:56:00] there's a man on life support and you're going to get them. They offered them to five, four different hospitals and they turned them down for a certain reason. Maybe the size of them. Yeah. Maybe the blood type. Maybe the antibodies were wrong. But for some reason they all turned them down.

And when it come to my, my surgeon, when he's heard it, the, the lungs were short, a little bit shorter than what I needed. He says, Robert, he says, we're going to take a chance. Yeah. We're going to put these lungs in you because they're perfect lungs, they're pretty and pink.

Nneka: They're pretty. And we're going

Robert: to pray that they fill up your chest cavity.

They expand. So they took an x ray of me like every hour for the first two days. And he says, they're expanding perfectly. They're working out. They're molding to your They molded right to my chest cavity. To your chest

Nneka: cavity.

Robert: So it was like, God's gift. Two G's. Clearly God's gift. And she said, his mother said, God makes no mistakes.

She says, don't feel bad. She goes, well, my son saved your life. You know, he saved five lives that day, and you're the one I want to reach out to. So you're my [00:57:00] new son. She says, you're my two sons in one. She, she, she texts me. She texts us every morning. Good morning, sunshine. Good morning, spicy. You know, every morning.

It's a

Cherie: beautiful family. We're so blessed. You know, we've lost our parents, and they are just,

Nneka: You guys see them often. A

Robert: lot.

Nneka: It's your family. Yeah,

Robert: my new family. I see them more than I see them. So you guys get invited to the cookouts.

Cherie: Oh, yeah. Cookouts, grad parties. We've been to both his son's graduations.

Robert: So he had kids. He had three, fortunately. Three

Cherie: boys and a girl. Wow. We

Robert: met three of them. One of them found himself having that.

Okay.

Cherie: They were quite young. He was

Robert: her oldest son.

Cherie: He was only

Robert: 33. 33.

Cherie: He was shot and killed. He has two other sons.

Robert: And the night that he was shot, I can remember that night clearly, the Friday before the call, watching the news and hearing about a shooting in Pontiac at a craps game in a basement. [00:58:00] And I, I looked at her and I said, who, do they still play craps?

I, I didn't know if they did, because the casinos are open. Or

Cherie: something, dice or something. No, they

Robert: were playing dice in the basement. And somebody come in to rob it, and that's how it happened. The gun was accidentally discharged. Okay. But I remember hearing that story on the news. It was being robbed, okay.

And I think the second day after my transplant, my, me and my brother were talking. At the same time of my transplant, that coach of the Titans basketball in Wayne State, he had passed. And we were talking, well, maybe you got his lungs. Because he was a big giant, big guy, real tall. I said, maybe he was an organ donor.

Might have been him. But we didn't. Never knew

Cherie: until we, you know, sent our letter.

Robert: So we, until I learned his name and I looked him up and then I read the story on how he died.

Cherie: Many families don't reply to the letters. You know, everybody grieves differently, as you know. And. Some families never reply to the recipient.

[00:59:00] I mean, we're grateful that

Robert: we've met

Cherie: so many that haven't I wouldn't, like,

Nneka: I wouldn't a person want to know the, family of, you know, whose lungs were donated. We don't take

Cherie: anything for granted. We're so grateful every day.

Nneka: Because I'm sure it's a blessing for them to have, to be around you because you have their son's lungs.

It makes it, I'm sure it fills a sense of closeness. It's a bond. Definitely a bond.

Cherie: And we're meeting new people constantly within the family and the friends and the community. And she'll say, Yes. He's got Ugg's lungs. Is that what she said? She said, you know this

Robert: guy? I said, no. She said, this is so and so.

Ugg's best friend. He's got his lungs. He's got his lungs. That's good. That's good. So she's proud of that. And his brothers, he had a couple brothers. And they had a hard time accepting it, of course. Of course. They've grown to understand it. I'm really grateful for what their brother [01:00:00] did. I don't take it for granted.

I, I, I thank them all the time. I, I call them my brothers. You know, my, they're my brothers from another mother, but we are definitely brother.

Nneka: Absolutely. I love it.

Robert: I had to ask her and her mother's name was Angie. And I had to ask her, I says, you know, everybody's got a name. And everybody's got a nickname.

I said, you need to send us a list of everybody's name and what their nicknames are because I'm so confused. There's like 30 of you and none of you use the right name. Your real name.

Nneka: That's good. I'm Spicy.

Robert: You're Spicy. Is that what she calls you? She calls me

Nneka: Spicy. You're Spicy? Yeah.

Cherie: I mean that's what she calls you when she says, Hi Spicy.

They all, pretty much everybody does. That's my bowling name and everything. Anytime we went to an event and I've dressed up or something, she's like, you so spiky, you look so good, you know.

Nneka: Oh, but that is a beautiful blouse.

Robert: She bought her a little cup, a thermal cup [01:01:00] and it says the S on it. And I have one that has an R on it.

Everybody goes, what's an S for? Just spicy.

Nneka: Spicy. Cause I know a Cherie ain't

Robert: spelled with an S.

Nneka: That's right. That's good. That's good. So, it's been, it's going on nine years. So, what is life like? What in terms of treat, you know, treatment that you have to continue? Is there treatment you have to continue?

I do,

Robert: Blood draws once a month. They check all my levels. My, my kidneys are in, kind of, kind of in first stage kidney failure from the, all the medication that I take. Because I take medication at 9am and 9pm every day. Anti rejection medicine, vitamins, magnesium, just, just a bunch of different drugs.

They keep me alive, keep me from going into rejection keep my lungs from fighting with my body. Because they might, they might not be able to get along if I didn't have anti rejection. So I do labs [01:02:00] once, once a month. Check my levels. My levels are always perfect. Once in a while they're off, but they give it in a month, then they come right back.

Okay. And then I, I do clinic once every six months. That's where I go down and I do, I get on a machine and I do blows so they can see my lung function and then do a, a chest x-ray, sometimes a ct. Mm-Hmm. But I have to go see a heart doctor once a year, a skin doctor, once a year. Because now, now I'm, very open to skin cancer because of some of the drugs. So there's a lot of kidney

Cherie: doctors,

Robert: Just

Nneka: doctors.

Cherie: Yeah.

Nneka: So the, the lung transplant should There's no expiration on that. It should live. It should be sustainable. The longer time

Cherie: goes by that, like he said, with medicine, the more they learn like years and years ago, there was a less percentage, like they would say, maybe five to eight years.

There was a five year

Robert: survival rate.

Cherie: We know people that have lived 25, 30 years. So I think it just depends on the [01:03:00] patient. I think it's all about compliance, taking care of yourself.

Robert: That's right. Listening to the

Cherie: doctors, getting your labs, eating right. We mentor so many people that, you know, we'll get on different sites and you'll see things that they're going through early in the process and I'm like, hey, I remember this like it was yesterday.

I suggest this. Just, we've learned over the years just what works and hope that

Robert: it keeps him around

Nneka: for a very, very long time. If you're compliant, like you said, no smoking, eating right, being around healthy people.

Robert: I can't eat grapefruit. I'm not supposed to because it'll mess with my, my meds. I can't eat eggs with a soft yolk because there's a

Cherie: salmonella, possible

Robert: salmonella poisoning.

And

Cherie: no lakes.

Robert: We shouldn't go on a cruise. Because of the people and the Too many. Too many, too many reasons you get an infection. Yeah. You know, a cold, catch a cold or the flu or something. And most [01:04:00] people, a lot of people that you hear and you talk to, they go into rejection at least once after a transplant.

And they just treat that with medicine. Okay. But I have no, I've never had an infection or a rejection.

Nneka: What does a rejection look like? What would that look like?

Robert: That'll give, make you short of breath. Okay. Maybe your lungs are Starting to fight with your body, so your, your body's rejecting the lungs and the lungs are rejecting the body.

So they have to up the dosage of your, your anti rejection medicine and maybe give you a bigger steroid, sort of calm them down. Okay. You know, just to keep them, everybody on an even keel.

Cherie: You would probably have symptoms of feeling sick, maybe a fever, but shortness of breath is the biggest indicator and they, they can do their blows at home, which we always recommend to people after their transplant to continue to do that because that's a huge first indicator.

If the, if, if you're consistently having these great numbers and they're, they're good and then all of a sudden they're [01:05:00] dwindling and that lets them know, Hey, this is a problem. I need to call my doctor and see what they recommend. But life's been great. Those first two years after transplant, we were unstoppable.

We had our muscle cars out every day. We were at all the car shows. We zoomed life. We have a whole room with trophies. If I go to a

Robert: car show and a parking lot the size of yours, I put 10, 000 steps on it.

Cherie: Yeah,

Robert: we just, you know, in a couple hours, just walk around before I really couldn't walk far.

Cherie: And shifting his car was like, for me to see him do that for the first time was

Robert: heartwarming.

Cause I used to get winded shifting my car, being on oxygen. But now it's like, I

Cherie: love it. That's wonderful. That's wonderful. And like he said, snowballing, he loves snowballing. So

Nneka: you guys are very active.

Cherie: Yes,

Nneka: which is nice. It's just very nice. And we took a

Cherie: trip to Virginia to visit relatives and we went to like three national parks and we hiked up the hill, down the hill, around and [01:06:00] around, had picnics.

We went, we went to a amusement park one day and And he went on like the scariest rides. I actually did a coaster with him, but he went on this one ride and I was like, are you, he's gotta do it. He's got these new lungs, he is gotta feel it. . And he did the, you know, the, the one that teeters

Robert: like this? We in the big swing, like, like the pirate.

This one went really high. Oh, you were like looking down at the No, we had to like to have fun. We went to Virginia twice. Mm-Hmm. . 'cause we were Virginia. Virginia in the first time. We were in Virginia. I oh yeah, two days in . I, we got there and, and her, her aunt or her cousin says, we got a big feast, feast for you when you get here.

'cause she likes to cook. So we got there, she had this like seven course meal there, all greasy and stuff. . Oh. And, and I've already had a gallbladder gallstones. So we get there and we eat this big feast and that night go to bed. We're gonna go, we were gonna go to the coast Nags head or something.

Cherie: the next day.

North

Robert: Carolina in the morning. I [01:07:00] got up next day in the middle of the night and I got a pain in my side so bad I couldn't hardly sleep and I've doubled over and I get up and I said, I don't think we can go. I said, I need to go to the hospital. So we just went to the nearest hospital and I was having a gallbladder attack and they sent me back to see the surgeon and the surgeon said, Oh, so you're, you're a transplant patient.

And he says, I don't really haven't really done a lot of gallbladder surgeries. He said, my suggestion is you should go home. This is our third Second day in Virginia. You should go home and get your gallbladder removed. He said, I don't want to do it because of your transplant. So we spent the day in that hospital.

So then, you know, we didn't go to the beach. And it turns out that while we were in the hospital, they had a torrential rainstorm at Nags Head. And cars were floating down the street. Oh no. We would've been there. We would've been trouble. Oh, you've been in trouble. Yeah, we would've been in big trouble. So everything happened for a reason.

Yeah. God steps in all. Look again, glory to God. You're absolutely right. So we cut our vacation short. We came home. [01:08:00] I had my gallbladder surgery, and we went back because she had a, she had rented a cabin in the, in West Virginia for the, the four of us to go and spend the weekend.

Cherie: And we went through a lot of different towns, like where my grandparents were, and my grandmother's childhood home, and another place where my grandmother's brother had worked, the Greenbrier, and we just, it was a wonderful trip, both times, even though we got cut short the first time, but this is close family, cousins.

on my mom's side. My mom's, my grandma, my mom's mom's, you know, nieces and nephews and cousins and that. So it was, it was a beautiful trip to be able to take. They had been wanting us to come for a long time. What else did we do? Oh, we went to Maine recently. His close friends that he grew up with. We went and stayed with them for a week.

And we had done a few trips prior to you being on oxygen. When you were working at Ford's. Yeah, I went to Ford's a lot. I went to Vegas a couple times. He proposed to me in Vegas. Wow. [01:09:00] And his dad and my dad knew about it for six months.

Robert: Nobody else knew.

Cherie: I, nobody knew. And I said, no, he would have been in trouble because he had the whole family flown in and for the ceremony he said, I'm going to have a Charles Bronson lookalike walk you down.

And my dad came up behind me and tapped me on my shoulder and he was able to give me away. So it was a beautiful, romantic gesture. He had no idea

Robert: anything was going to happen. He

Cherie: had everything planned out. It was a, it was a beautiful, romantic gesture. I always wanted an outside wedding. They had the falls and the, you know, this area.

It was just, it was perfect.

Robert: I said, will you marry me? She said, yeah, when? I says in two days. In two days? In two days. I said, yeah, tomorrow we'll go downtown and get the license and the next day we'll get married. I said, it's all set up. Simple as that. We got the honeymoon suite at the cross the street at the Tropicana.

We're gonna get married at the Tropicana. Everything's good.

Nneka: That's beautiful. That's beautiful. I do want to ask you, when COVID hit, how did that impact you, Robert? Did that, because I know you had to, I'm sure, isolate, not be around [01:10:00] people. Was there any concerns around that? Oh, yeah.

Robert: There was a lot of concern.

I had to get the COVID vaccine wear a mask constantly. I was so used to wearing a mask, my, my surgery, after my surgery, I wore a mask for two years everywhere I went. I didn't want nothing from nobody.

Nneka: Absolutely. And I think everyone had to wear it around you too, I mean, because that's what you were accustomed to.

Right.

Robert: But yeah I caught COVID, I think, two years ago. You

Nneka: did? He said it a couple of times. It was a very,

Robert: very, very slight.

Nneka: Okay.

Robert: Nothing major. I had like a cough and a sore throat and a runny nose. And that was it. Then I went down to the hospital for my labs and. They said, well, they're going to check you, and they said, yeah, you had COVID.

Nneka: See, like you said, you're a healthy person. Like you said, it was just your lungs. So that probably, definitely is in your favor that you're a healthy person. And you have good people around you. People don't realize how important it is to have good people around you. you're not stressed all the time. Yeah, they can take, take some of that stress off.

It's

Robert: great to have a good caregiver. Yes. [01:11:00] You know, if you have someone in your corner that. Oh, yeah. That does everything that needs to be done. She was always filling my medicine. Things for the week and ordering my meds and setting up my appointment. She still does the set of my appointments and then you know I we set them up according to her schedule not mine because mine is open.

I'm retired now So

Cherie: I attend the appointments with them. I always have she was important to for a caregiver because As a patient, with anyone, even when you're healthy, I think you forget when you go into the doctor's office what you want to ask. So I just like to always be prepared and on guard. Even like at the hospital, you know, when they were giving you insulin, you know, two, two, three days.

I'm like, why don't you ask them, you know, let's find out why. And you're not diabetic. And I guess many patients, their levels are all off right after the surgery. And they were like, it's protocol. And I said, but. His numbers all look good. I mean, tell him you

Robert: don't want it. I mean, I'm in there eating candy and they're checking my, my sugar.

Well, no wonder my sugar is up. I'm eating candy. You're

Nneka: eating [01:12:00] candy, right. Chocolate. So did you stop, so have you stopped working?

Cherie: No, I've always worked. The only time I took off was, well,

Nneka: six

Robert: weeks.

Cherie: The six weeks, and then I stayed home after as well.

Robert: Yeah, for a month, I think.

Cherie: Yeah, so I was off during that time, FMLA.

Right. I've been very fortunate. I've been with the same company 30 years. I work for doctors, and they have been amazing. They sent us this huge gift card when we came home after the surgery, and it was for meals, and I just thought that was the best gift. Because who feels like cooking? I have enough to

Nneka: do.

Absolutely. Even though

Cherie: I love to cook and bake, but I mean, we, you know, and it was right after the New Year, so I'm like, oh we can order, we ordered a steak. Meal one night a

Robert: real fancy restaurant. Yeah,

Cherie: and then just having that

So nice, but I worked at the office for many years and I did billing and worked up patients and We see [01:13:00] a range of patients from diabetics to premature babies. We treat diseases of the retina, the back of the eye. So, as I said, I worked in the office. I worked up patients. I did billing. I was an admin for 10 years.

And then I was lucky enough and the opening became about in our control center. And another group had bought our group. So, it's, I mean, our Our group is worldwide but with this other group on board too, it, it made us even larger, and I was able to work from home, which I still do. So I just triage, you know, patient phone calls come in, I fill out prescriptions answer their questions, schedule their appointments, check their insurances.

And we just have a great team. And it worked out perfectly because obviously with Robert, I did not want to be in an atmosphere where there's a potential of me bringing home something for him

Robert: to

Cherie: get. So, you know, during COVID, I was off immediately. His doctors were like, you can't be at the office. And [01:14:00] even after that, going back, I was fearful.

Like, my God, what if I, Bring something home. But I was actually, I've had more colds and bugs than him. Really? Since COVID. I've never gotten sick. Strong immune system. That's good. I have headaches. That's it. But yeah, that's great. He, yeah, he's like Superman. My family calls him Superman. Superman. Awesome.

Nneka: So before we, there's a few more questions I want to ask because I know our listeners will want to know.

So this amazing book, and like I said, I gotta be honest, I haven't finished reading it, but I have been reading it. It's a very good book. An Unknown Angel's Gift, A Couple's Lung. Transplant journey. What inspired you to write this book and when did you start?

Cherie: I started writing it, well I should say, when this process started with him and I, I mean I've always journaled my whole life or wrote poetry or read biographies.

I've always liked writing as a way of putting my feelings on paper. So, I journaled everything throughout the process. [01:15:00] Different appointments, different things I learned. There wasn't a lot of resources out there for transplant patients. When I would look things up, it was all about, okay, this patient's had diabetes or they've had cancer or not a lot of things told from a caregiver's perspective.

So I'm like, I need to journal this and I'm going to write a book to help people one day. If it inspires and offers hope. and help somebody, not only in transplant, but in any medical situation where they're caregiving for someone, you know, give tips and ideas and suggestions. That's what I'm going to do.

So I journaled for years and then I always knew I was going to have it, a couple's lung transplant journey. And I, I knew I wanted angel in the title because this person that was going to save his life, it was like a gift from God, an angel. And I, and, and it was like, This person's unknown and it's a gift.

So that's what I came up with. And as you said earlier, it is, it has been all [01:16:00] about him and I. And our whole marriage has always been, you know, the ups and downs, like any marriage and communication is huge and just inspiring and leaning on each other. And

Nneka: you guys have a lot of support groups too. I think you, well, not a lot of supports, but you attended support groups and you're very involved in the community.

That's

Cherie: helpful.

Robert: We're both gift of life volunteers also. Okay. We do tables and. I've done speeches and seminars. I've talked to doctors and nurses.

Cherie: Students.

Robert: Students. Whenever they ask, I, I'll, I'll, yeah, I'm ready. I'll volunteer, I'll do this, I'll do that. We have one in all our book signings, our book tour, we have a gift of life table, and they usually send their volunteer out, but if the volunteers show up, then I'm the volunteer.

I'm, I don't have a problem. You go and Push, push your story in your book, and I'll sit here and push gift and life, you know. I know, I know. Because the more donors we get, the better we are. [01:17:00]

Nneka: the purpose. I'm going to tell you, that's, it's so nice to know what your purpose is. And it's like, you guys have definitely took it and ran with it.

You know, God's purpose for your life. And it's like, a lot of times these things can happen and you just kind of keep it all to yourself and you don't necessarily share and you just kind of go into a shell. But you guys decided, you know what, I'm going to make, this is a learning opportunity. This is a gift in some way so that you can actually support and help other people and encourage, you know, Oregon.

Am I saying that right? Organ donation. Yes. Am I saying that right? I'm going to be honest, I didn't know much about organ donation. And it really makes you think about being a donor. Or just being a donor, period. I think it's, it's the unknown why some people don't become a donor. Were you guys donors before this?

Yes. Oh, you were? Okay, good.

Robert: There's a lot of That's really good. Myths. Myths out there about being a donor. A lot of people don't want to be a donor [01:18:00] because If I get in an accident and I get to the hospital, they're going to want to take my heart and donate to somebody. They're not going to save my life, which is totally false.

They do not, doctors do not know you're a donor, and they don't care. First thing the doctor does is to save your life. No matter what. That's their job, that's their own. And people just, they just think that if they see that heart on my license, then they're going to make me a donor and not, not save my life.

They're not going to save my life. Oh wow, I never thought of that. And I, yeah, I had to do a like I said, I did that YouTube video for Gift of Life and it was Waiting to, Waiting to Live. It's on YouTube. It's a, it's pretty old. I can't remember the year. Waiting to Live,

Cherie: Winning County. I think it was like around 2010.

Robert: 2010. Somewhere around there. And it was for the black community downtown. It was a whole push was for the black community because most of the black community does not believe that the doctors will save your life before they'll donate your organs. So [01:19:00] that was a big

Cherie: push. Wayne County in Michigan was the lowest county for organ donors on their license.

Robert: So it was like me and four other people that did this, this little video. One was a heart patient. I was a lungs, a kidney, you know, you know, and a liver. And a young girl, she's passed, isn't she?

Cherie: Yeah,

Robert: I

Cherie: think

Robert: she got the

Cherie: heart and then, but the the kidney recipient, she is still, I'm friends with her on Facebook and she's still very well involved with gift of life and she's doing fantastic.

She went on to graduate high school, graduate college. She's pursuing her career. She's done really well. And then liver recipient. He's doing really well. He was a Spanish gentleman. There were five people, like you said, that day, that each it was at a different venue. Downtown Detroit. Whatever, whatever venue

Robert: they picked, that's where they shot, you know, you and you talk.

Nneka: Yeah. And like you said, in the African American community, like you said, it's, [01:20:00] you know, it's not someone, we're not aware, so therefore, then there's some concerns. Right. If you're not

Cherie: aware, or don't know,

Nneka: then. Yeah. But like, but your young man, who's an African, you're a donor, Right. And I said, I always want to make sure I'm saying, you're a donor.

He was an African American male. So in their, like you said, his family was somewhat surprised, right? Cause he didn't necessarily share that. And to be honest with you, I was a little surprised too, because it is a fear there. So it's nice to know that he pushed past that. All

Robert: of our organs are pink. I mean, I don't care what color a person is or what their nationality is.

All our organs are interchangeable and they're pink.

Nneka: There you go. And

Robert: we're all the same people. We are, we are so more like than different. My donor family, she told us right away, she goes, I don't recognize color. I said, I don't either. We're just beautiful people. Yes, I wish we

Nneka: all could just be that way.

If the world could only be that way. If the world could

Cherie: only be that way,

Nneka: yeah.

Cherie: We do an event every year for Gift of Life to honor the donor [01:21:00] families. And it's incredible. And we sit at the table and watch every family come in and come in. Talk to them and and it's very difficult because they've lost a loved one and it's a big part.

It's hard For the person waiting and for the caregiver when you think about you know, they lost someone so dear to them But they saved so many lives and they're able to live on and for us to be able to Live our life. Like I said, we do not take it for granted and every day is a gift This William, you know, saved five lives.

He was an incredible part of their family and we're just so grateful. Yeah, you can tell they loved him dearly just based on Oh, yeah. He was very special to the community. She said at the funeral they couldn't even get everybody in there. I think we were

Robert: five years after the transplant. We met him, we were hanging out with him, bowling with him, and it was like [01:22:00] November of five years, or November of, Whatever.

She says, I haven't had Christmas since William died. She goes, I want to put up a Christmas tree this year. Would you two like to come to my house for Christmas? Oh boy. And I was like, that was a big thing to them. And I said, absolutely.

Nneka: Absolutely. So ever

Robert: since, she has a sofa for Christmas, at Christmas Eve.

puts up a tree, and we all exchange gifts, and, you know, some of the family stops by, and I think recently, the last one year or two years, Kelsey and Elmer have been coming, now because they bowled us, and it's just so great.

Nneka: That's beautiful. So we have about a couple more minutes, and I would like for you guys to You know, to speak to our listeners about organ donation, if you had to speak to that person that's on the fence about organ donation, Robert, you've kind of spoken to it already, but I really want a more intentional conversation with our listeners about organ donation, how important it is.

Can you speak to that? And Cherie, I would like [01:23:00] for you to do it as well.

Robert: There are so many people on the waiting list for different organs mostly kidneys. That's the hardest one. Because they're going through the dialysis once, twice a week, three times a week. And when you die, there's no sense in taking your organs with you.

You know, you're, you're going to be, all you're going to do is either you're going to be cremated or put in the ground. Those organs aren't going to do you no good, no matter what. So, if you sign up to be an organ donor, you can save, You can save up to eight lives or you can enhance up to a hundred people's lives with your organs, with your cornea, with your tissue.

There's, there's so many things that you can donate that you don't need after you're, after you've passed. Yeah. You know, and it's I would say it's selfish to not be an organ donor.

Nneka: I

Robert: would agree. Because you can actually save many lives and, [01:24:00] and be, you could be remembered by not, not just by your family, but by another family.

You know, you can, your family can grow further. Yeah, you can make if you make that sacrifice and it's not really a sacrifice because

Nneka: You're not,

Robert: you're, you're,

Nneka: you're on earth anymore. Right. And I think it's just ignorance. I just think it's a function, it's just fear. I think people are just very fearful of the unknown and like you said, like will my life be saved?

Or what

Robert: will I look like when I, when they cut me open and take my organs, what will I look like in my casket?

Nneka: Yeah. Well,

Robert: you're going to look the same. Yeah. You know, they, they take care of that. Yeah.

Nneka: Knowledge is key. The knowledge is key. So Cherie, if you can last few minutes.

Cherie: When you, we're all put on this earth for a reason and God has a plan.

You know, I think to these gift of life events and meeting these families that have lost someone, and that [01:25:00] person was an organ donor. And you meet the recipients as well. It is so important. Losing someone is hard, but knowing that your loved one saved someone that was waiting for a lifesaving gift and they don't take it for granted, they live their life.

And if they're blessed enough to, to meet the donor family

and just Not take it for granted, but I, it's hard to put into words. You told me this, huh? Because I'm telling it from a caregiver perspective and not a patient, but anyone that, if you're on the fence about it, just think about what you can do to help others. There are babies waiting for hearts and children and people of all ages and [01:26:00] ethnicities that are on dialysis and struggling and scared.

Waiting for a chance to feel better as hard as it is to make that decision, or if you're scared about them cutting you or what they're going to do. It's, it's a good cause. To be an organ donor. I wouldn't have the life and my marriage that I have today. If William wasn't an organ donor, and he helped so many people and he gave us our life back.

Nneka: And as you are doing the same thing, you're helping so many people. It just didn't stop. Once you got your transplant, you got your organ donation. You continue to bless others by spreading, building community around the importance of it and just supporting others. And you're paying it forward. That's the right word right there, Robert, paying it forward.

And I know you have some book [01:27:00] signings coming up here. So what we'll do is we'll put the dates on our page so that people can, I would love to come to some of them. Are they the summer or when are they? There

Cherie: is well, next month in June is, It's in Pontiac in the donor's hometown. So we're very excited about that one.

What date is

Nneka: that?

Cherie: That's June 22nd. There will be six authors there that day and I'll be speaking at 2. 30. Okay, that's nice to be questioning answers and give

Robert: the life there. Okay. We have a representative from you who knows coming in from Florida. Okay. To be there for that. The donor family will be there on June 22nd, the donors are the surgeon.

We're, we're thinking the transplant team is going to show up from the hospital. Maybe the surgeon. And the donor, my donor, William's friends are going to show up, so it's going to be a big

Nneka: event. It's a big event, so where is it located? Pontiac

Cherie: Library. Pontiac Library, okay. [01:28:00] It's 60 East Pike Street, and it's from 12 to 4 on Saturday the 22nd.

Nneka: Thanks for joining today's episode. If you enjoyed the story time, don't forget to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and YouTube.

Leave us a review and share with your friends to help us reach more listeners. Stay tuned for more insightful stories. Until next time, take care and keep exploring new connections with us. Thanks so much, Sherri and Robert. That was great.