Mind of a Liver donor : Confirmation
From a maybe liver donor, a phone call made me into a liver donor.
There’s a stark difference between waiting and testing for a match, then having the date set for the surgery on the 7th and going into the hospital tommorow. Other than a phone call, nothing has happened related to donating my liver so I will delve into my mind for the challenges that made themselves opaque to the matching reality.
The greatest worry I have is for my dad. This isn’t an attempt at sounding noble. In any way you look at the current situation, he’s the one with the information booklet 10 pages long with possible complications of the surgery and its follow up process. On a pessimistic day, I think about one of the complications killing my father – plenty of them are capable of doing so though slim in chance. In a nightmare twist, I would awake from my surgery to find my intentions to breathe healthy years to my dad’s life had in fact, sucked the precious remainders dry. His wants and thoughts forever gone and mine forever changed. This thought is few and far apart – it was all jumbled pieces of fear that didn’t quite come together to form a horrendous picture as illustrated.
It may be a few words, but the previous paragraph took solid resolve to write. The complications hurt too much to spotlight them in my imagination. At the beginning, I wanted nothing more than to shove it all into a dark corner to allow for an ignorant security of success. Yet, the resulting comfort isn’t worth it – I would rather flirt with brood and anxiety so that when I talk to my dad before the surgery, I am aware of the consequences so that I better decide what we share.
Now onto I, I am not so selfless I don’t worry about myself through this process. Yet, I feel this shield of invincibility as a Med student, that the diseases of the textbooks and lectures are for the others and statistics, unable to touch the one who studies it. Ah, I’ll be fine, no need to write on.
There is something inevitable to liver donors, and that is a great big scar across my abdomen from the cutting open of it to take the right lobe of my liver. In an interesting correlation, the scar in most cases happens to be an L, as if to symbolize that it was all the Liver. But, each scar type is unique for each surgeon, it happening to be their pride and joy. After some research, I have found a surgeon who makes scars coinciding with the initial of my name. Now’s the time to look into his competency and request that he scar me for life.
EDIT: Cruel twist of events. I got a phone call an hour after I writing this up. Previously, it was a consultant nurse who confirmed everything was a-OK to go, but the consultant doctor was unhappy with my splenomegaly. (Note: Somethingmegaly = that something has been enlarged abnormally, for example a penismegaly is when a penis erects upon a gentle breeze upon the pants.) Further investigations showed that I had recently been found to be infected with Epstein-Barr virus and tonsilitis. (Well actually the second was really my complaining that it felt like I was sand-papering my throat with my spit whenever I swallowed – this led to tubes being stuck down my throat and my nose – yay…)
I’ve made my way to the hospital again… Ah bleh, today hasn’t been fun. I was given an IV drip of saline to hydrate me for the CT scan (certain doctor’s prefer their patient hydrated). Right now, I would call it a discomfort, but when the nurse first administered the needle she missed my blood vessel (later she insisted she hit the vessel but it burst) and left me be in my bed. About 20 seconds later, I started to squirm in pain that felt like someone was stabbing needles in and out of me along my forearm. The NZ culture kicked in, and I thought I’d ‘man’ the pain but after 5 minutes of jostling around I looked down to see my forearm had gone huge, looking nearly twice the size of its counterpart (my right forearm). The sorry nurse saw it as I walked down the corridor, and fixed me up.
New year, new look
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