We were never close, but his parents have been our neighbors for almost 40 years. Good neighbors.
And their son is about my age, and he is quite ill. He’s been going through the early to moderate serious stages of liver/kidney failure.
His birthday was today. And I just feel so weird and awkward about what to give the guy.
Couple weeks ago, we had extra watermelons, and the melons were great, so I carved a melon and walked across the yard and gave them half.
The dad apparently got to my mom saying thank you and enjoying what a good melon that was.
But geesh, what can I do or send to him or his family that will do anything?
Pizza night? BBQ night?
Poor bastard is not my best friend by any stretch, and for whatever reason, we have awkward exchanges….
I dunno. This is not my wheelhouse.
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On that note, I got diagnosed with a fairly advanced liver disease a few months ago. It turns out that I have an unusual inherited gene that promotes liver cirrhosis even though I don't drink. (I blame one of my parents for this.). I would highly recommend not sending the guy pizza or barbecue since that's not liver-friendly and will just make him sad.
On that note, a person can be a "living donor" of a liver, and if you donate part of your liver yours will grow back into a full liver in only a couple of months. Is that cool or what? So depending on how my condition progresses, I may ask if one of you people would mind donating me a piece of your liver. Thanks in advance.
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Originally Posted by Buddy Rich:
You seem like a solid dude, good luck with everything.
Thanks. Can I have a piece of your liver?
Originally Posted by wazu:
Well, shit. That is incredibly unfair. Hope whatever treatment options there are can stabilize things.
Thanks. Can I have a piece of your liver?
Originally Posted by Jewish Rabbi:
So sorry to hear about your diagnosis.
Thanks. Can I have a piece of your liver?
Joking aside, I'm doing pretty well. Earlier this year I was noticing that I had a low-grade nausea and was not feeling hungry, so I went to the doctor. I figured I had a stomach infection or something, because I'd had something similar a few decades ago that felt familiar. Those symptoms can be a lot of things, so my doctor started ordering some tests to see if anything in my blood was off. Nineteen tests later, they said that my liver was inflamed, but since I don't drink and was only marginally overweight, they said it was probably a mild issue. Then they did a test of liver damage and said, "Oh." I'm relatively close to liver failure, hence the symptoms.
Since I didn't really match the profile for liver disease, they said they wanted to test for an uncommon genetic issue, but said, "That's really unlikely." Then they did the test and said, "Oh, well, look at that." I drew an unlucky genetic card. One of my parents passed me a gene that produces an abnormally low amount of a certain protein that protects us from environmental damage to our liver and lungs.
The gene's not completely at fault, because it increases risk but doesn't actually cause the issue. The issue in my case was caused by too much junk food over the years, and the gene was basically a magnifier of the normal damage that our livers can shrug off with the protective protein.
There's historically been no treatment, but the same month that I was diagnosed, a new medication was approved by the FDA. More on that in a moment. But the first thing to do was to try the traditional method of cleaning up my diet and losing weight. So over the past few months I've lost 30 pounds to a level where I'm no longer overweight (and I look fabulous - back to wearing my skinny jeans). I'm also off of all red meat, sugar, and packaged foods, and I eat a lot of liver-friendly foods like seafood and nuts. I've also become a coffee drinker for the first time in my life since coffee is good for the liver.
My latest test showed that my liver distress has declined notably due to the weight loss and good diet, almost down to the normal test ranges. I'm hoping to get a bit more improvement and stabilize it, and I'm close. Right now, I'm doing well enough that they won't prescribe the new medication, which is just barely on the market and in limited supply (and $4,000 a month - yikes.). I'm hoping to avoid needing it since I don't really want to be an early adopter and I also want to avoid $4,000 a month if I can solve the problem naturally.
The next big test will be to see if my liver can regenerate itself, which is generally easy to do if this is caught early. Unfortunately, we caught the problem so late that I fall into the "irreversible damage" category, but I've seen some cases online where people with similar damage have gotten regeneration of liver capacity. I'll have a test in December to see where I stand on that, and I'm optimistic as long the genetic issue doesn't override my progress. I'm told that it's unlikely that I'll ever get back to a fully healthy liver, but with some regeneration I can back off from the precipice of needing to ask people on the Internet to give me a piece of their liver. Even if I can just hold where I'm at, I should be good for 10+ years, and hopefully hold on for my full lifespan, which will seem a lot longer without barbecue and Dr. Pepper.
The whole thing was a surprise. I had no idea that I had a problem brewing.
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