Mind of a Liver donor: Testing 1,2,3

Being a liver donor isn’t cheap. What you read today is at the expense of $3000NZ.

A needle sticks out my arm having made itself very comfortable in my median cubital vein. I’ve grown quite fond of it, it’s keeping my arm from looking like a heroine addict at the end of the day. A liver CNS, consultant nurse specialist, administered it whilst fondly recalling the mega benefit of her higher-up position was that “doctors can’t screw [her] anymore”. She’s right, if I was a doctor, I would not screw her.

After the needle pricks, things took a turn for the high tech, and it was to the CT scans. Before I knew it, I was lying down with my arms held high as if exclaiming victory of having taken an elevator down to the room. A large hollow tubular machine lie at the end of my feet and around the circumference of the scanner a thin panel of glass is visible enclosing within it tids and bits of machinery ready to furiously spin once activated. The best part of a CT scan has nothing to do with the machine.

It’s the injection of contrast material. The doctors warned me that it’ll cause a burning sensation at the least and cardiac arrest at the slim-likely most. As soon as they inject the contrast, you can feel it spread from it’s injection point in your arm. It’s like being in a cold pool when a little kid next to you lets rip his pee and you can feel a disgusting warmth spreading slowly across your area of the pool, slowly enveloping your body – except this time, the little kid has urinated inside your body. I use this simile because the warmth in both cases is actually quite pleasant ignorant of the cause, but there’s something about the source of the warmth that’s very disturbing.

All is swell until the dye reaches your loins. Simultaneously, the whole pubic region lights aflame and the calm radiation of the substance throughout the body until that point becomes a turbulent eruption as your body jerks and trys its best to expel it all out. So if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to shoot fire out of your orifices, drop the match next to you ass and get a CT scan.

Shaking off the nausea, I walked down the corridoor for a MRI. There’s no flaming injection for this test, with nothing more exciting than entering into a mini-igloo shaped machine and having loud noises blasted at my ears. What left a deep impression of this particular test happened outside in the waiting room. I stood in the middle of a three-person-width corridoor orientating my patient-clothed self in this unfaimiliar territory. As I successfully located my room a strong shove pushed me into the wall and I heard my ‘assailant’ mutter “fucking kids”. I turned to see a 60-something old man barging down the corridoor looking for anything to prove his manhood to his woman boredly waiting down the corridoor. I froze with shock leaning against the now adjacent wall.

This was insulting on so many levels and I stood speechless deciphering how this old man had just delivered a below the belt blo… no a complete excision of the family jewels. I was a patient, with a disease unbeknownst to the man who easily could have manuvered next to me, yet he felt the need for a primately show of strength to compensate for his failing sildenafil-fuelled activities. I felt an anger I knew would be uncontrollable had I entered into a conflict with this old man to result in profanity and fist blows. I felt too old and too young to do that and walked into the MRI room with the nagging feeling of defeat.

The final test of the day was a liver biopsy. The concept of a large needle taking a bit of my liver out was daunting. My doctors’ attitude only added to the dread. Of the two doctors, one was a light-headed doc asking me who my liver was for. The answer of my father gave her a fountain of crap-talk as she started to rattle on about how it’s my duty as a son to give my organs and how fate had brought all of this together. Then with a fake smile she chided “But you must be scared, right? right?” with that she walked away satisfied at her achievement of utter senselessness. I don’t know what her job was, as she soon left as soon as work was to get started.

The doctor replacing her was pure efficiency, words were a waste of time, as she ultrasounded to locate my liver, anathesized me, and took some of my liver. It was surprisingly painless, and I felt euphoric at the thought of the end of testing day. It wasn’t actually the end, as I was told to lie on a sandbag for 3 hours motionless to put pressure on the spot of my liver. The 3 hours were so boring, I feel bored blogging abou..