Blog 10 - Random Blog Post 1

My father had a liver transplant three months ago. I cannot believe that it has been three months already. It has been three months since my father was given another chance at life, another chance to be a father, a husband. Another chance to just be a person. My father was given an estimate that there was a 50% chance he would have died in a month given the current state of his liver disease. This was a statistic I somehow wasn’t ready for. All I remember growing up was the constant fear I felt for my father's life. The first thing I would do when I came home from school everyday was make sure that he was still breathing. So why did this time carry more weight? Why did this statistic shatter my world? 

At this point my father has been sober for several years, but had been carrying the weight of his consequences in the form of a liver disease. I just don’t think any of us had realized how bad it had gotten until the last month leading to the procedure. It all happened so quickly. He rapidly declined as his liver got worse and worse, when suddenly we received a phone call that he had been approved for the transplant list. I never even thought of the possibility of my father having a liver transplant, and I don’t even know why. I thought it was out of the cards for him. After years of living with these struggles, the doctors determined that he was worth being saved and that is exactly what they did. His procedure went so well, they even described him as a miracle patient. I feel blessed every day that the universe was on our side and that my dad is still alive today. So why do I feel like a rug is going to be ripped from underneath me at any moment?

Due to my father’s incredibly compromised health status, he was placed on a transplant list and within less than 24 hours we were rushing him to the hospital at 3 in the morning for what was to come, which was a 10 hour long procedure. Weeks in the hospital blended together and just like that I had to hop on a plane to travel thousands of miles away from my family.

The last few months have not felt real to me. None of it feels real, not the procedure, not the changes I have seen already. Normally I wouldn't choose to write about such a heavy topic, but I feel like at this current moment, it is the only thing that has been on my mind. I don’t think that I would have much else to say of any substance if not this. I am a pretty private person when it comes to things like this but this was such a massive life altering event that I felt like I had to casually pass by up until this point. So now that the dust has settled and I finally feel like I can breathe, the whole thing has been consuming my thoughts. I haven't been home since my father got out of the ICU. I want to go home. I want to help my family. I wanted to take care of him after the procedure, but I had to finish the last semester of my degree. I have been stuck here feeling helpless trying to push it all down to get through school so I have not allowed myself to process any of it, I simply haven’t had the time. 

As we are nearing the holidays and the end of the semester, those thoughts and feelings that I have had yet to process ease closer and closer to the surface of my mind. I’m preparing to go back to my new home and to my new life with a father who no longer has liver disease. This addiction and disease has been the only thing I have ever known at home. I don’t know what life looks like after that. My hope is that my family becomes stronger than ever and that my father doesn’t take his new life for granted. All I know is that I want to go home and I want to see my dad. 

It is hard to find things like school meaningful when you almost lose someone you love. It all makes you question the point in everything that you are doing. However, everyone goes through struggles in life and the world keeps spinning. My world has kept spinning and my father is doing well. I am just excited to go home and stand still for a while.