Mind of a Liver Donor : Transplant

5 days since surgery and I finally feel alive. I tried writing this post earlier, when my thoughts were much more raw but looking at the computer screen made me nauseous to the point of throwing up – so it’s taken me feel today to get typing– when I just feel nauseous.

Let’s take it back 156 hours, it was hammer time. There was no blue pill or red pill to choose from anymore, just a white one they told me to take to relax. All I remember after that is, waving the V sign to my mum and brother who had these eyes that cried so much worry that I felt I ought to give them a lift-me-up of some kind.

Next time I wake up, I am being rushed out of the operating room into the ICU. 8 hours and a half had passed since I went into surgery into 7:30a.m., making it 4:00p.m. My eyes are trying to focus the blur overwhelming my sight, but before clarity, my first conscious thought merges from the blur- my most instinctive, animalistic thought, defining who I really am.

“What the hell…?” ……… I’m not proud of the thought, it could’ve had more depth, but dealing with the brightness, disorientation, pain– it leaves little room for thought. Then my eyes finally focused on something. My brother and my mother. The warmth of a CT scan dye flushed through my body – except this time, it wasn’t a kid pissing in my body, it was someone really high up.

I waved them the same V sign as over 8 hours ago, and my brother took my hand into his. He’s never been an expressive brother, wanting to maintain his cool, mysterious cloud – in fact, coming out of his surgery (no, not a liver transplant – it’s not like its a family tradition), he pushed away my exact same attempt to hold his hands a week earlier. Yet, here he was, my hand in his, and telling me “I look awful” as open tears formed on his eyes. What a pleasant surprise.

I thank those 2 so much for giving me the sense of security and strength to come out of the surgery stupidly warm with the feeling of elation even if I felt the most pain in my life at the same time.

All of that happened fairly quickly, and my mind shifted to how my dad was. Nonetheless, I felt a pang of guilt with my dad’s surgery not being my first venture into awareness. “Surgery’s still going underway, and isn’t expected to finish for at least 5 hours from now” some masked man told me. Thinking it a pathetic attempt at reassurance, he further told me my “surgery had gone successfully without any complications”

I lose complete sense of time from then on, and everything becomes a mixture of pain, pain medication, high-pitch screaming from pain (not by me, but by some dude in the room next to mine, if it were mine it would be a manly low-pitch scream), the sight of my two caregivers outside a big glass window, and drifting in and out of sleep.

At 11:24p.m., my father came out of his surgery, him taking an extra 7 hours and half, for a total of 16 hours. 

Ah… It’s over’ was my last thought giving up completely to remain alert for a easier rest.

Now I know, No it wasn’t. Not even close.

Footnote: I had originally written this on my laptop on the 2nd of Feb – thus it being the 5th day after my surgery. Didn’t want to re-type it on the hospital public computers (the only ones with internet) so it didn’t get posted til now.
The reason I’m telling you is to maintain a sense of time – the post dates are way jumbled.