VAN BUREN, Mo. -- Two days after the Buckner family returned from "our wish trip" to Florida, the family of four was forced to flee in the middle of the night as rising flood waters reached the door of their Van Buren home.
Robert Buckner and his wife, Virginia "Ginny" Buckner, and their two daughters, Kimberly, 16, and Abigale, 15, lived on Alexander Street, four blocks from Current River.
The Buckner family had moved into their home in August, renting it from other family members. The house was located next door to their previous home.
"We'd been living in it, keeping it up; they were helping us out because our daughter had surgery, a heart transplant," explained Ginny Buckner.
Moving into the house, she said, had lessened the financial burden, resulting from the trips to St. Louis, Mo., for Abigale's care.
Abigale, she said, was born with Ebstein's anomaly and atrial septal defect.
The tricuspid valve, which separates the heart's right atrium and ventricle, was displaced, allowing blood to flow back into the right atrium, she said.
"She had a lot of oxygenated blood and unoxygenated blood that mixed and would be pumped throughout her body," she said.
In addition, she said, Abigale had a hole in the wall that separates the atria (upper heart chambers).
That condition, she said, allowed the unoxygenated blood to come into the right atrium and then leak through the hole into the left atrium.
Although Abigale was born with both conditions, Ginny Buckner said, doctors didn't intervene with surgery at that time.
Abigale, she said, didn't have surgery until after she went into heart failure in December 2015.
Tests were run to see if doctors could "fix the valve and close the hole," but the "function of the left side of her heart had deteriorated so much from doing most of the work, they discovered she was going to need a heart transplant," she explained.
Abigale, her mother said, was placed on the transplant list on Feb. 25, 2016, and less than a month later, she had a new heart.
The recovery process went well for about six months until the teen had a "virus reactivate in her system," Ginny Buckner said.
The teen, she said, had contracted cytomeglavirus from the donor heart.
Ginny Buckner said they were told about 85 percent of the adult population already is effected with the virus, which is "very common," and its symptoms are comparable to the common cold.
In a transplant patient, such as Abigale, it can "set up an infection in the kidneys, lungs, gastrointestinal system, brain, and it can even attack the heart," said Ginny Buckner, who indicated her daughter had no antibodies to fight against the virus.
After undergoing antiviral chemotherapy, Ginny Buckner said, her daughter went into remission in February.
The counts were low enough that the PICC line (peripherally inserted central catheter) was removed, and Abigale was taken off her medications, she said.
"We had just been cleared to travel and just gotten home from our wish trip two days before (the flood) happened," Ginny Buckner said.
The Buckner family returned home from Florida, where they visited such attractions as Disney World, Universal Studios, Sea World and Clearwater Marine Aquarium, on Thursday, April 27, and "was flooded out on Saturday," April 29, said Ginny Buckner, who indicated the river had "never gotten that high."
Her husband agreed.
"It got in the driveway of that house (next door), but didn't get into the house," he said. "This flood, it had rained while we were gone for a solid week.
"Then, when the big rain hit, there was nowhere for the water to go. Twenty-three feet we can handle."
Ginny Buckner agreed, saying "we've seen that before in our driveway, but it was fine."
This time, Current River would crest on Sunday, April 30, at 37.2 feet.
At about 11 p.m. the night prior to the crest, Robert Buckner said, Kimberly came in and said: "'Dad, the river's backing up to the door.'"
Robert Buckner said he and his family were able to go out through the back yard and get their car out, but not before it became stuck in the neighbor's yard, "our old yard. (The neighbor) pulled us out."
At the time they were awakened, Ginny Buckner said, she and her husband had been in bed about a half hour. "Kimberly had wanted to stay up and watch a movie," she said.
As a Beta student, Ginny Buckner said, her daughter had helped at Van Buren's prom that night, which was "shut down" early due to the rising water.
"She was still keyed up from all the excitement," said Ginny Buckner, who indicated they let the teen watch TV in the living room that night instead of sending her to her bedroom.
"His alarm was set for midnight," said Ginny Buckner, who indicated her husband planned to check the water level and drive their vehicles out at that time.
"If we had waited for his midnight alarm, we wouldn't have gotten anything out," she said. "We would have had water in the house."
Ginny Buckner is "very thankful" they didn't have to walk through water to get out because "Abigale is so susceptible to infection.
" ... Even us, because we have to be near her and care of her."
When the water receded, "we went back; I think we got our family picture," which was the "only thing" that could be found, she said.
"Since everything was so destroyed, it was hard to dig through," said Ginny Buckner, who indicated they didn't want the "structure to come down on us."
The family, she said, had to wait for an inspector to check the house before any clean up and recovery efforts could begin. The home, she said, was deemed not safe to enter.
Robert Buckner said the house floated in the water as evidenced by how it now sits on its cinder blocks.
The home's concrete front porch, although it came out of the ground at some point, is what "kept it in place ... floating," he said. "That's why it wasn't totally under water."
"Everything we have is just gone," said Ginny Buckner.
Gone is the red binder, which contained all of Abigale's hospital discharge papers, test results and blood work, said Ginny Buckner, who now is trying to compile as many of the records as she can.
The little things Ginny Buckner lost, which "meant something to me ... hospital bracelets," she said. "I save those. I had my bracelets from where I had both girls."
People, she said, say those are "just things, but those aren't just things.
"Abby's transplant bracelet ... that's 10 hours that he and I sat up and worried that she was alive ... The bracelet where I had Kimberly, that was 26 hours of labor, waiting for that beautiful girl to be born."
Ginny Buckner said it's those types of things that she thinks about.
For Abigale, she said, what upset her the most was the loss of the souvenirs she bought with her own money in Florida for her friends.
"The way I've dealt with this is I remember a little over a year ago we almost lost a whole lot more," Ginny Buckner said. "This is just stuff; we can accumulate more stuff with both of our daughters."
Unlike many flood victims who had nowhere to stay, the Buckners were able to move in with Robert Buckner's mother.
"Every family has a story; every family has these things going on in their life that nobody knows" about, Ginny Buckner said. "Our preacher talked about a couple he saw cleaning up their yard.
"He asked: 'How's it going?' The guy threw up his hands and said: 'Fifty-three years right here in my yard.'"
What's happening is "not just about me, my husband and our two kids and what we went through," she said. "The whole town, we all have issues, people dealing with cancer and other health issues," as well as dealing with "where are we going to go; what are we going to do ..."
At this point, "there isn't anything to rent in town," Ginny Buckner said. "We have one possible (place) to look at ..."
It could mean, she said, relocating to another town.
"We'd really rather not do that; we have kids who already have lost everything they have," she said. "I'd hate to uproot them even more and take them away from their friends, their home, their school."
As they consider their options, Ginny Buckner said, she and her husband have been to the bank.
"We know where we are financially and where we need to be," she said. "That's a process because of our income."
Ginny Buckner said her job for the last year has been taking care of her daughter.
"We have a long-term plan ... to buy a house," she said. "But, for now, it's how to find somewhere to temporarily call home."
Until that place is found, Robert Buckner said, they are "fortunate to have my mother ... we're very glad and thankful for her."