WAIT.....WHAT????

This is a round door handle. Why do I show you this?  It’s to show you how my belly button looked and felt one night. 

You can’t really tell from this photo but it looked and felt like that door handle. It freaked us out. Why do liver patients get these lovely hernias. It’s because with all the ascites (fluid buildup) that keeps expanding your belly it causes them. I’ve had babies. Your stomach gets huge. Never got a hernia from that. 

 On January 23, 2019, we made a trip to the ER. The doctor came into the room and took a look at it. Tried to push it back down. Couldn’t get it to do it. He proceeded to call the liver team. They sent a surgeon in to take a look and see if he could get it back down. I started to see if I could push it back down. Lo and behold I did it. Finally the surgeon walks into the room and wonders why they called him down. They watched me for awhile and let me go home. Keep in mind this was about 11:00 PM. Get home, go to bed and fall asleep. 

About four hours after I get home, January 24, 2019, at about 3:00 AM my phone rings. I sleepily pull myself awake and it’s 

THE CALL

It’s the Transplant Folks. They inform me that I am the primary candidate for a liver. Can I get to the the hospital in a half hour. Geez, I’m asleep, in my jammies, and kind of scared. 

We get there. They hurry me into a room. They get a lab tech into the room, and he proceeds to take a ton load of tubes of blood. After he leaves, the nurse hurries me into the shower and gives me a shower. The Transplant team comes in and goes over a bunch of paperwork. You’re trying to take it all in. They tell you they can only tell you a few things about the donor. It was a male and he had committed suicide. I wish they wouldn’t have told me that part. It made me incredibly sad. 

SIDEBAR

Most times when you get a transplant, after you get  to the hospital you have hours to get ready. The organ might not be there yet. Organs can come from regional hospitals or further away. If they know the harvesting team at that hospital, and trust them they let them do it. If the hospital is not regional, they may need to send a transplant surgeon on the hospital’s private jet to pick it up and help harvest it. Then they have to fly back. 

We get all the paperwork signed. I won’t let go of my husband’s hand.  I have an incredible fear of being put out for surgery. Especially one that can take up to five to eight hours. It’s from watching stupid movies like Coma, where they tell their family members they have died, but they are actually keeping them on life support to harvest their organs. 

They are saying that they are waiting for me in surgery. What the???  I’m pushed out into the hall. I still haven’t let go of his hand. I’m scared. He’s scared. They let him go down the hall with me until they are ready to take me to the surgery floor. We say our goodbyes. He must have given me a hundred kisses. I could see the anxiety in his eyes. We say our goodbyes and off I go. I am so glad I didn’t have this transplant during COVID. I can’t stand thinking I would have to go through this surgery without him there with me. 

They stop you right outside the surgery door. The anesthesiologist comes out and explains what his role is and has you sign his “I will charge you separately” paper. Yes I mentioned my fear to him of being put under. They then roll me into the the operating room. 

I hear the nurses say that the liver is there. They use two surgeons. Sometimes it’s a surgeon and a resident/fellow co-surgeon. At this time I hear that Doctor FATTY was going to be the other surgeon. No!!!!!!!  He’s in the back getting the liver ready. 

They put me on the surgery table. They’re putting all kinds of things on me. Heart monitor, this monitor, that monitor. I’m terrified. I want my husband. The anesthesiologist puts the mask thing over my mouth and nose and tells me to breathe deeply. 

And then I wake up. 

I’m in my room. I’m looking around. I see my husband. I ask him if I have a new liver. I guess I thought it didn’t happen. He told me that I did get a new (used, haha) one. The surgery lasted 5 hours.

Physical Therapy (they are spawns of pain) came in the next day. They made me get out of bed. We were going for a walk. What??? Didn’t they realize I just had a major surgery?  Well, that complaint didn’t work with them. Pain masters I tell ya. Thank goodness they didn’t make me walk far. 

The next few days I don’t remember a lot that went on. Things were about to change.