1973

Part 2 of my Liver Transplant story During the operation they saw that I had varises criss-crossing around my stomach, esophagus and heart, varises are blood vessels rerouted because other blood vessels are damaged - a very dangerous condition. I was in the hospital 3 weeks because there was so much damage. Also, when the surgeon was in there he found evidence my liver may be damaged. He advised my wife and I if he had known that my Gall Bladder was in such bad shape, he wouldnt have operated. He said he never has to open someone up (it was supposed to be done lapriscopically) and this would affect his numbers. He was more concerned with his statistics than my health! After I got out of the hospital my stomach started to bloat, or bloating was what I thought it was. It was in reality fluid build up in my stomach from secreted fluid out of my liver, it was called asidees. My liver had to work harder than the average liver and secreted fluid. I would go to the hospital and they would numb my stomach on the left side and insert a 6 inch or so needle into my stomach, it would hurt because they couldnt numb all the way through to where the needle would pierce and I would feel it pop through the wall thats under your skin to the fluid build-up area. The needle was attached to a tubing, the tubing ran into a glass quart bottle. Most of the time they took 6 to 9 bottles. The most bottles was 12 and 14. Right after having the belly tap done I could eat a meal. The fluid would build back up very quickly and I couldnt eat very much at all and lost a bunch of weight. The technicians told me stories of people that had them everyday and they would rush out to eat before the fluid built back up. Well for me this procedure was a very good thing and I wanted it so I could eat something. It got so bad that the fluid would actually seep through my skin, now that was weird. Around this time I was home alone one day and all of a sudden started throwing up blood...pure blood. Thank God my wife came in the door at that exact time and called me an ambulance. My varises had burst and I had internal bleeding and was rushed to the hospital. I was taken to surgery and they banded my varises. They could only do so many at any time so 4 times every six weeks I had to go have surgery and more banding done. At this point I was constantly hospitalized for pain, excruciating pain. I was so medicated and my ammonia level was so bad that I had no idea what was going on. I started going to see pain management people at the hospital. We saw a doctor for pain management and she prescribed hydrocodone for me. Well I got to like it so much that I had to stop taking it. At this time I went to see a specialist, a hematologist. He tested me endlessly and on my 3rd trip to him he told me this. "I'm afraid you have lymphnoma cancer and have 3 months to live". He then left the room and my wife and I sat there staring at each other unable to speak for 3-4 minutes. Well the doctor comes back into the room and says "There is one more test we can try, but it is really rare and is present in about .03% of people with this reading." He goes out and comes back in a few minutes and tells me that I have crystalization not usually found in lymphnoma cancer. He was guessing from the results it was my liver and wanted me to get liver biopsy done. 2 weeks later I had the biopsy done. The results were was that I had NASH. Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis or NASH is a common, often "silent" liver disease. It resembles alcoholic liver disease, but occurs in people who drink little or no alcohol. The major feature in NASH is fat in the liver, along with inflammation and damage. Most people with NASH feel well and are not aware that they have a liver problem. Nevertheless, NASH can be severe and can lead to cirrhosis, in which the liver is permanently damaged and scarred and no longer able to work properly. Well this fit me to a tee, it was time to get a new liver. Easy huh? Well the adventure to get a liver was starting. KU (Kansas University Hospital) on the border of downtown Kansas Ci

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