A Delicate Balance II

by David
(VICTORIA BC CANADA)

I saw my children stupefied in shock, frozen by circumstances that they had no control over and understood even less. What’s worse, neither did their parents. Devastating for 4 children under 12. What’s going to become of them.

Well, for some reason I’ve always felt I’ve had an angel on my shoulder. Many times in my life I’ve put myself “out there” without a lifeline or a safe haven though I’ve always found one or one has always found my. I’ve never not believed in God. Though I was part of Nietzsche’s “God is dead” generation. My wife and I drove in silence towards our home. After about 15 minutes, the longest, heaviest, most meaningful “but with what”; most poignant yet terrifying eternity, my pager went off!

Now, I must tell you at this point that my pager had previously given us a false alarm 5 times. The emotions get themselves on a wild ride and don’t know when to stop whenever this happens. You phone the clinic feeling such thrill from hope “at last oh, thank God! Only to be gently let down by the clinical coordinator “I’m sorry” she says and you know she means it. The ride towards home was a painful one. My stomach looked like cadaverous and I had aged far more than the 2 years that had transpired since y initial organ failure. Every bump on the road caused me pain yet for some strange reason I always felt like things would “work out.” I never ever said or though “why me.” I was always adept at diverting myself from experiencing too much pain or grief. The old stiff upper lip, repressed Brit background revealing itself. I had come to terms with my impending date with destiny but over the previous 16 months, I’d taken a crash course in staying positive without giving it too much thought s if too much would prove to be precisely that, too much. Too much for this, young body old soul to handle in one lifetime. OK, better luck next lifetime right? Wrong!

The voice on the other end of the cell said “NO false alarm this time buddy; you’re on your way!” Within 2 hours, I was air vacced onto the rood of the hospital where the team of ‘Buzz’, the euphemistically named head surgeon and the good doctors and nurses who were part of his amazing team of wizards really, were waiting.

24 hours later I remember coming too, demanding ice cubes and a pen with which I wrote “I’m thirsty feel OK.”

My recovery was nothing short of amazing. Instead of the 3 month stay I was downgraded to one! One month and I could go home and start a new life. Hope was something I’d been without for a long time and now I could feel that I had it again. Without hope theirs just despair and that’s not really living. To feel hope so tangible after so long was a powerful catalyst towards my recovery. I felt as if I’d been shot out of a cannon. Well, at least that’s what I imagined it to be like, and the next few years were going to prove me right in some strange cosmic way.

I was monitored extensively for the next few weeks but had no complications and no organ rejection and I frequented the gym 4 or 5 times a week mostly rowing on the rowing machine. I was on a huge coterie of medications including Prednisone, which is brutal in what it does to the body long-term. There are many transplant recipients who are unable to come off Prednisone once they start with it. I gained 50 lbs in 5 months! With my recovery well underway, I took a greater interest in the Hep C cause and became an active member of the group. Soon I was traveling back and forth to the other side of the country to help make a case to the public about Hep C awareness. But that’s the next chapter in my story. To Be Continued.........

Dave