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I have been hesitating writing this post for some time now, for several reasons. Part of me did not want to make it a reality and part of it was my dad was not ready to announce this to the whole world. However, I have realized that you, my prayer warriors, needed to know what all was going on.
So here it is.
My dad needs a liver transplant.
He has battled Hepatitis C for the last 30 years or so, only being aware of it the last 10 years. It’s contraction is not totally known, but we speculate he got the disease when he worked at a hospital back in the 70’s.
My dad is currently doing as well as can be expected. If you look at him, he doesn’t look “sick”. However, he’s very tired, jaundice, nauseous a lot, and suffers from other various bouts of sickness. His entire life has changed in an instant. Not only is he waiting on a liver to save his life, he has had to change his entire lifestyle to prepare for a liver. He has to lose weight, watch his sodium, sugar, and fluid intakes. No more alcohol or red meat and many other food restrictions. It’s been a whirlwind at our house trying to all get accustomed to this new lifestyle.
As far as the liver transplant goes, they are based on a Model for End-Stage Liver Disease, or MELD score. The scoring is as follows:
40 or more — 100% mortality
30–39 — 83% mortality
20–29 — 76% mortality
10–19 — 27% mortality
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