I Wasn’t Ready for a Liver Transplant
I saw videos of people getting the call to come to the hospital for their transplants a lot in the recent months. They’d always cry tears of happiness knowing they were finally about to receive a second chance at life. I’ve known many of them personally; they always seemed to find me. They’ve had long and painful waits, where every moment is suffering as they try not to create expectations or hopes for tomorrow.
That wasn’t really my experience, not the first time around at least.
In fact, I was shocked when my mom burst into my room one Sunday morning, her eyes wild with every emotion I’ve ever known her to have.
“They've found a liver for you! We have to leave immediately!”
She is hardly finished speaking when she rushes off to call our family, probably.
I look around the room, too shocked to know what to do. My eyes fall on an empty duffel bag, which was supposed to be packed months ago in preparation for this moment. I grab it and start shoving things in.
I don’t know why I’m shocked, I’ve known this day was coming for a year now. I guess I just thought it would be later, when I figured out my life. Maybe I thought it would happen when I was sicker; when I couldn't move my body anymore and my skin and eyes were so yellow that I look like I’m glowing; I've looked like that before.
The familiar feeling arises in my stomach. I don’t even care anymore because it visits me so frequently now. My shoulders tense up and my pulse quickens as my body shifts into survival mode.
I feel too good for a liver transplant now, but my transplant surgeon confirms time and time again that I need a new liver. The one that I have is scarred, knobby, and nearly dead and I will be soon too if nothing is done. The way it is being managed currently will not last forever, but the surgeon always tries to reassure me by saying that I should be grateful that it isn’t cancerous, even though it looks exactly like cancer on all the scans. I don’t find this news too reassuring.
The grieving process begins again. It can’t be time yet. I am not ready for this! I shove three days’ worth of clothing into the duffel bag, not realizing that I will be in the hospital for more than a month.
...
Less than two hours later, I’ve been admitted to the ICU of the Children’s Hospital awaiting news as to whether I will receive a liver today. I look around the room, noting at least three cameras bolted to the sunny yellow painted walls, where the nurses can fully monitor me. I’m not too worried about it, I fully expect to go home in about 12 hours. I've heard about false alarms before, and because this was the first time I’d ever been called in, I anticipated this to be one of them. One of my friends was called in more than 3 times until she finally got her transplant, each time she was more disappointed than the last. She had been waiting more than a year on the list and was sick since she was a small child.
Unlike my friend, I don’t go home. No, in fact, everything moves forward “very nicely” as a nurse in cheerful scrubs describes it. For the next 10 hours, my parents sign legal documents, make calls to extended family, and talk with church friends. Every nurse and doctor that enters the room asks me one question repeatedly, “Are you excited?” I try to remain positive, because I recognize that a lot of people are waiting for an opportunity like this, but I can’t shake the feeling of nausea. Someone has just died, and their family is experiencing the worst day of their lives right now.
Time moves very slowly, then suddenly I look out my hospital room’s large window and see that it is dark outside- midnight now. The surgeon finally comes into the room, measures my stomach with his hands and says, "That should be about right." I laugh because there should probably be a more definite way to measure vital organ sizes than just eyeing it up, but he's the professional. He leaves for some unknown destination to retrieve my new liver. About twenty minutes later, I think I hear a helicopter outside the room. I want to think about my donor, but I can't bring myself to. It's too hard, too painful still. I feel like I’ve been waiting for their death, or even worse that I’m not grateful enough for this gift.
I'm wheeled into the operating room, where I'm met with a quiet stillness spare a few nurses who are fiddling with some operating tools. No one makes eye contact with me; I don't know why I was expecting chaos. I hop off the gurney and onto the operating table, looking forward to the anesthesia that will help me forget these past two years of my life. After a few minutes, the anesthesiologist approaches me, goes through the spiel that I've heard more than 40 times and tells me that "we are going to take great care of you." I try not to roll my eyes because if I’ve learned anything in my two years of being a patient, I know that doctors have no idea what my outcome will be, and once the body is in motion, it cannot be stopped. He accesses the IV that was already started and so begins the wonderful process of going under and it definitely doesn't take long once they've put the oxygen mask on. Soothing waves of relief wash over me. My palms sweat slightly, but I'm not nervous anymore. Voices fade, and I just don't care anymore.
I awaken to a pain so severe that I want to die. In fact, I am already dying, I just don’t know it yet. I feel something holding me down and through blurry eyes I see the horrified faces of family members and friends. Why are they all crying? I have no idea what is going on and can barely form a cohesive thought, but I don’t really care either. My eyes roll back in my head, and my chest feels so heavy. Something sticking in my neck shifts and I groan. I catch snippets of conversation, but they mean nothing to me. I hear my mom telling everyone who will listen that I was prom queen less than two weeks earlier, hoping to cling to that life, which seems like thousands of years ago. The nurses nod uncomfortably as she gestures toward a photograph of a friend and I wearing our cheap prom crowns. The nurses don’t bother trying to talk to me, I wouldn’t be able to talk back to them anyway. Somber doctors enter, talk to my parents, and then leave. I wish everyone would just leave me alone. Days blend into nights, I’m in and out of consciousness. My body feels hot, why is no one else sweating? I’m so confused, and I try to ask my mom what is going on, but I cannot speak. With teary eyes she tries to communicate, but I still don’t understand. I don’t know what day is, but the pain gets worse. The nurses administer pain medication because I’m agitated. With pain medication comes itchiness, but I can’t scratch myself for some reason. I cannot move any part of my body.
But, for some reason, things begin to get better. I actually am able to sit up on the edge of the hospital bed, but I’m hooked to an I.V. tree pumping close to 30 different medications into my body. After two weeks, the feeding tube that was in my nose is removed and I eat an English muffin. Three weeks later, I get to take a shower for the first time. Every day, in addition to seeing doctors and nurses, I work with dieticians, psychologists, physical and occupational therapists, pharmacists, and social workers. At first, I refuse to hear about what happened to me because I am coping with the physical pain so much so that the emotional trauma of finding out about what happens seems too much for me to bare. But over the next few weeks, I gradually piece everything together:
After the transplant was over, everything looked great. The transplant surgeon was thoroughly impressed that I didn’t need blood, as most recipients do. However, the next morning, an ultrasound told a different story. There was a large clot in my hepatic artery, which brought blood to my liver, but because it was blocking blood flow, the new liver was shutting down. The ultrasound also caught two clots in my lungs, which was causing a lot of chest pain. Apparently, my body went into hyperactive mode and started shooting clots everywhere. The surgeon concluded that I needed a second liver transplant within the next two weeks or I would die, so I was placed at the top of the transplant list nationwide for a new liver. Three nurses monitored me 24/7 and I went in and out of the O.R. more than four times over the next week so the surgeon could try to remove the clots, this failed each time. In the meantime, I was placed on life-support. But finally, after a week of waiting, a nurse notified my parents that a liver was available. 7-hours in the O.R. later, I received a second liver, and the long days of recovery finally could begin.
And it was certainly long, but if the days were long then nights in the ICU were even longer. With the combination of sleepless nights, high doses of pain medication, and depression, I developed ICU delirium and swore that a bundle of IV tubes next to me was a burrito. One moment a nurse would be talking to me, and the next a heart rate monitor was singing me a song. The ICU room did have a window, so I tried to look outside to remind myself that there was life outside of the hospital, but over the next two weeks I really struggled to maintain my sanity.
...
A depression hangs in the air, and I feel horribly guilty that I don’t feel grateful for this extraordinary gift I’ve just received. My support system reminds me that my body has just undergone a major trauma and that the medications are known to cause mood swings, but I feel like they don’t understand. You see, as my care providers, family members, and friends saw me getting better, I felt even worse. I finally could deal with the emotional trauma of being critically ill after just dealing with the physical pain for so long, and with that came a lot of tears. I felt as if I would never leave the hospital even though every day another drain, tube, or monitor was removed from my body. It was so hard that even though I was making great progress in my physical recovery, mentally I felt devastated.
It’s my birthday, and I awaken with the familiar depression that has been haunting me for the past four weeks. My mom brings in a muffin for me to eat, and I smile in gratitude. She points out the window and I see that most beautiful sunrise I’ve ever known. Admittedly, it wasn’t that great of a sunrise, but that day it was just what I needed. (More) And exactly ten days later, after being in the hospital for one month I am able to go home, and that’s when I am overcome with a joy so deep that it is inexpressible. My mood drastically shifts, and so does something inside of me, and I have not been depressed since that day. As I finally enter my home, I think of my first organ donor and their family. How kind of them to go through the process of donation in the midst of their grief; I think of them often. I consider my second organ donor, who still lives on in me to this day, and I break down in tears. Both of these incredible people are missed dearly by their families, and I am here today because of them. I continue to cry because I wasn’t able to be strong while I was in the hospital, and because I know that I should have been more thankful. It is such a deep regret, and I feel it so intensely, and I still do to this day. I will eventually deal with the “survivor’s guilt” that comes with an organ transplant sometimes. I ask myself daily, why I am complaining about those small aches and pains when someone has died, and I am still here. Do I even have the right to complain anymore?
It is so bittersweet, organ donation. You receive the gift of life and are finally able to do all the things that you never thought you would. However, recipients have to come to terms with the fact that someone else has died, and it is so surreal. I have a piece of someone else inside of me, and they get to live on through me, which I found out is the only solace some have after their loved one has passed away.
I lie on the couch and for a half of an hour I revel in this bittersweet and surreal experience. I turn my eyes to the television as a prescription medication commercial appears on the screen. A slim brunette woman dances across a large ballroom, showcasing all the things she can do now that she’s taking the drug. I laugh inwardly. I could probably singlehandedly perform an entire flash mob with all the medications I’m taking.
ns3.23.104.114da2
然後按「加至主畫面」