Salamander
Fire Walking

My doctor's appointment last Friday led to an immediate admission to the hospital. I had gained so much fluid that my heart was being over-worked, and there was still no clear reason why this was happening. Six days of diuretics, a pelvic ultra-sound, a liver MRI, a liver biopsy via julgular catheterization, another echocardiogram, and countless vials of blood later we now know why the fluid is building up inside of me.

For reasons still unclear, I have gone into chronic liver failre. My liver is enlarged and scarred and is no long able to work normally. It's still working well enough that I'm in no imminent danger, so long as we can keep the fluid build-up under control. We're not sure what's damaged my liver, since all the tests for disease and toxins have come back negative so far. At this point, though, it hardly matters. Even if we can determine why, it won't change the fact that I will require a liver transplant.

This actually is good news. My prognosis post-transplant is excellent. When I went into the hospital my physician and I were thinking ovarian cancer. Fortunately, this is not the case. It appears that I am simply being faced with one more bullet to be dodged this lifetime. I'm beginning to think I should purchase stock in Kevlar.

It seems I will be on disability for a good long while, though. And I'm not sure what my prospects for continued employment in my current capacity are, since I will be on immunosuppresents, and my job exposes me to some pretty nasty stuff every day. As The Socialist says though, we'll just take it one day at a time. Things will resolve themselves.

Right now, I'm an interesting mix of tired, frightened, relieved, exasperated, depressed, and optimistic. I want to take time out for one big pity-party for myself, but I've got too much to do to waste it on that shit.

I found out the news Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday night I told the Socialist. I told him that I understood that this this not what he signed up for when he disrupted his life to move three thousand miles and be with me, and I'd not blame him in the least if he wanted to bail. He made it perfectly clear that he was standing by me throughout this entire thing. So I did the only logical thing available to me.

I proposed to him.

We hope to be able to marry sometime before the transplant itself takes place.

With apologies to SONIAdada:

Hey, if you can't joke about it, what's the point of living through it?