So, I’ve really wanted to start blogging, and it seems that it’s not going to happen so long as I have to log into any kind of website for a period of time. So, I’m sitting on a plane, banging out El Numero Dos of my attempts to share what’s going on in my life. I am just happy that I didn’t get a call from Jason saying that he’s in the hospital. Oh – and I’m over the Grand Canyon right now; as beautiful from the air as it is from the ground.
Jason’s illness has been a strange point over the past few years. On one hand, he’s very sick; on the other hand, he’s doing better than he has since the turn of the millennium. Regardless of how well he’s doing, his past history dictates that he be on the liver transplant list, which he is on here in Utah
When Jason finally came to his wit’s end after three years of dealing with an umbilical hernia – the pain of which has led him to be on a regular dose of painkillers – the answer was the same, even if it was a “yes” instead of a “no”: (paraphrased) While we understand that this surgery would greatly improve the quality of your life, we must tell you that any kind of surgery comes with a high risk of mortality. One doc even had the nerve to tell us that Jason would have a 50-50 chance of making it off the operating table. Really, 50-50? It took me a long time to get over that, and I still haven’t been able to shake it fully. The thought that I could possibly lose my husband has been too much to bear.
While the reality and possibility of death is a constant for all of us, it just seemed that much closer all of a sudden. And I knew what I was “signing up for” when it came to Jason in terms of his health, but… I wanted more than a few months of married life.
Since that time, Jason has “renewed” his information with the transplant people. He has gone in for his scans and scopes, (one of which made Jason incredibly sick and gave him intense pain) readdressed the financial requirements of a potential transplant in the event of liver failure, and has gone through all the hurdles, and filled out miles of paperwork to make sure that if and when that time comes we’re ready. Of course, in the process of all this the docs started asking “With numbers like these, I’m shocked they even have you on the list.”
All-in-all, what I’ve learned is that he will probably have no complications from the hernia surgery. They believe they can do it laproscopically (sp?), his reactions to the anesthesia drugs are very positive (in fact, they’ve had him on the fentanyl from time-to-time due to the pain he’s been dealing with between the hernia and the cholangitis and the fact that his pain meds tolerance is super high), and they probably have to worry more about his liver processing it all too quickly rather than failure (meaning that he would come out of anesthesia during the procedure… happened before, and it’s not fun).
I’m still pretty bitter over what the doc told us. It’s put us through a lot of heartache. Knowing that his statistics would be pretty good, but dealing with the possibility on an emotional and financial level was harder than we thought it would be. I was scared, giving myself small doses of emotional pain just in case… you know, so that some part of me could be “ready”. What this has really taught me, however, is that you can’t really plan these things out and you certainly don’t need to be living life as though there’s a clock, ticking down the minutes. It’s too much for any of us.
Undoubtedly, there will be trials in the days ahead and there is the constant threat of risk – but, we’ll make it through. I know we will.
