What a Shock

There are many shocks in the process of learning about illness. In my particular case, the first shock was the letter from the blood drive saying ‘You have one of the many new types of Hepatitus-Don’t Come Back. P.S.-see your doctor’.
Shock two, back then my doctor had no definitive test and no recognized treatment (Interferon was still new enough not to be covered by insurance).
Shock three, when I finally got on treatment, I learned that Interferon (plus assorted anti-virals) probably won’t cure me and, even if it did, the liver damage is permanent.
Shock four, when I developed liver cancer I learned that, in an effort to discern its exact type and location, they put suspected cancer victims through a torturous stress test that would kill a healthy person. The blood tests alone, had they been healthy blood, would have stocked a good-sized hospital.
Shock five, when you go on the organ-donor wait list, there are actually two lists called ‘really picky’ and ‘not so picky’. I picked ‘not so picky’ and got a liver more quickly.
The biggest shock, after months of waiting and hoping to get a new liver, was the cold sliver of fear that went down my back when the doctor phoned to summon me for the operation. No advance warning, just someone, somewhere dies and you’re up. Ten PM Saturday night, you’re about to turn off the TV and sleep; the phone rings and you have an hour to get to the Med Center for the most massively intrusive operation ever devised.
I was also shocked to learn that the gall bladder is a little thing all wrapped up practically inside the liver so, at least in my case, they left it out. This is not conducive to regularity and a large part of my post-op life has been spent in the bathroom.
Don’t get me wrong. The cancer is gone. My brain works again. My muscles support me again. My new liver has gone back to filtering toxins out of my blood, just like healthy folks. But I will never be what I was. Never as smart or strong or quick. My new goal in life is to get off of disability, i.e. to be able to do a day’s work, or at least attend school. College isn’t easy for fifty-year-olds, but I would love to get strong enough to try it.
After the transplant, I had a huge three-way incision in my abdomen held together by about two score of staples. It takes months for the healing to advance to the point of removing the staples and about a year for overall recuperation. I’ve been about a year and change now and the thing that scares me the most is the idea of something going wrong, putting me back on the list. The first time, I was afraid I wouldn’t get a new organ. For the rest of my life, I’ll be afraid that I would.
That’s the final shock: if your doctors are rigorous enough, you will learn to fear them more than dying.