The Long, Slow Fade

I've always burned the candle at both ends, but the slow descent of my health from 2018 to 2019 left me with only one very small flickering flame.  Every few months I'd be in the hospital or emergency room.  I made constant trips to Pittsburgh specialists and had regular endoscopies and colonoscopies.  My body began to manifest the failure of my liver to do its job.  I developed:

• Portal Hypertension (pressure in the vein the goes from the gastric region into the liver)
• Splenomegaly (enlarged spleen)
• Esophogeal varices (enlarged veins from the back up of pressure)
• Fluid retention
• Malnutrition
• Bouts of supraventricular tachycardia requiring cardioversion (heart rate above 180 that doesn't resolve without the heart being stopped and restarted via either medication or electric paddles)

With all of things happening to me, the hardest thing for me to deal with was the tiredness.  There is a tiredness that has nothing to do with the lack of sleep.  It drains the life from you.  I still wanted to be in the thick of family and church gatherings, but I sat quietly and watched rather than participating.  At home I began breaking common tasks into small increments.  I learned to cope. Through it all, I continued to stay in good spirits, to hope and believe everything would be okay; but that dark cloud was getting closer and I couldn't just ignore it anymore.

In the fall of 2019, my brother-in-law passed away and was an organ donor.  My sister-in-law offered his liver to me if it was a match, so I called my doctors to find out the answer.  What I found out shocked me!  My doctor had no intention of putting me on a transplant list.  She thought my lungs would not hold up to a transplant.  I was devastated!

Me having a particularly hard day in 2018:

I kept my smile on and wore a lot of

really bright colors to stay positive