Mind of a Liver donor : The recipient

It’s not going to take years of medical study, hours slaving over as interns trying to cope with the tremendous stress, nor the wisdom learnt from textbooks for me to save a life most precious to me.

All it’s going to take is a part of my body.

I got a phone call late one night, it was a very worried mother on the other end with vague details of my hospitalized dad who was found lying unconscious on the floor next to a small pool of blood he had spewed up. A timely entry of my uncle was the thin line between whether I’d be fatherless due to internal haemorrhage or writing up this blog post.

The killer culprit were my father’s oesophageal varices. Weakly blood vessels that arise to redirect blood away from high resistance blood vessels of a cirrhosised liver. They are prone to burst, and they didn’t fail on this characteristic description. Due to unknown reasons, my dad’s varices burst and blood started to flow uncontrollably mostly into his body, and some into the closely aligned oesophagus and out into the world. Acutely, it is possibly the most dangerous consequence of a malfunctioning liver, but chronically, it only marks a beginning for a myriad of problems.

Upon hearing the news, I sat stunned while my brain refused to let in this foreign unwanted news. Two paradoxical feelings of despair and gratitude flowed through me helping me keep the balance from tipping into misery. After collecting my thoughts, I offered my dad my liver – who violently objected to the idea. Here I was, with a desperate desire to help my father live. When something  endangers your parent’s life and there’s an option to help within your grasp, consequences are forgotten to reach that goal. Yet, I could understand that from his point of view, he’d be scared to have his son undergo major surgery – especially just for his benefit. But that’s where he’s wrong. What he should be scared of the most is robbing his son the opportunity to spend more time with him, to give him a chance to have a relationship with his father beyond the father-teach-son of childhood but to have a relationship where we can open a can of beer each (hm.. actually not the best drink example in this case) more like friends.

The next week in New Zealand was a blur of reaching out for help from the familiar faces of lecturers and before the day of departure, a senior lecturer took to my situation, and with a cup of steaming tea, expressed his to help me  stand. He admitted having little knowledge in liver transplants, but wasn’t deterred by that in his desire to help.

I walked down the halls of the prestigous hospital, after over 20 hours of travel. The facility lived up to it’s reputation of the  best hospital in the nation. Big buildings, private rooms with killer views over the river, crisp organization, and “House”-like doctors – that is they are impossible to find. As an eager medical student, I dreamt of some quality time with any of the doctors on the attending team. That wasn’t so, though I did manage to steal (why does it feel like I’m stealing when it’s deserved time?) about 20 minutes with the resident whose knowledge blew me away but whose conversational skills left much to be desired. Now I just had to be a match to be a liver donor…