Eight years ago this morning, I woke up in intensive care after receiving a liver transplant. I looked like this:
They even had the machine that goes “PING!”
I’d been sick for over a year, but I finally got a diagnosis in May: Cirrhosis.
S’what? I don’t drink. I never have. They told me it was “Fatty Liver Disease.” Apparently a growing problem among Americans. One doctor told me, “I know people a lot bigger than you whose livers are fine, and skinnier than you who are just as bad off.” How comforting.
Turns out, though, my issue wasn’t “Fatty Liver,” it was bad choice of parents. I had “Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency,” a genetic disorder. For most people with this malfunction, the liver doesn’t produce, or produce enough of a protein called, unsurprisingly, Alpha-1 Antitrypsin that acts as an anti-inflammatory for the lungs. These people develop lung disorders like COPD and emphysema.
Not me. I got the other version. My liver made the protein, but folded some or most of it wrong. The wrongly folded protein cannot get out of the liver, and over time produces the scar tissue that is cirrhosis. Pictures below the fold.
You have been warned.
This is a healthy human liver:
This is what came out of me:
My gall bladder obviously wasn’t in great health either.
Anyhoo, I got a massive amount of support from you, my readers, and I just want to say “Thank you.” It’s pretty cool living in the future.