Unfortunately, this butterfly that flapped his wings in the form of my mother’s first husband sharing a dirty heroin needle with some douchebag stocktonite and bringing Hepatitis C back to her, years before I was born. It was a sleeper hit though, 20 years later as she was recovering from a thankfully benign but still huge brain tumor, the Hep C was discovered.
Fast foward another 15. The Hep C is no longer present in her system. Unfortunately, though I’ve not confirmed this with her doctors, I suspect it’s not the PEG/Interferon treatment that worked, but the Hep C and all the other medications plus a lifetime of poor diet (did I mention the type II diabetes? That was diagnosed early last year) that destroyed her liver. Stage 4 liver disease, cirrhosis. It doesn’t take any toxins out, and, worse, the liver is also responsible with providing your blood stream many of the nutrients from your digestive tract. A double-whammy, extra poor nutrition from her already nutrient-poor diet. When she goes without the medicine that helps remove the toxins, it’s a frightening mirror of what my great aunt went through with Alzheimer’s.
No true Botto would rest on her laurels though, oh no. Two life-threatening conditions? Bah. Already defeated. The diabetes, well, she’s walking and at least taking swipes at improving the diet. NEXT!
Unfortunately, that next has turned out to be liver cancer, the common outcome of cirrhosis that doesn’t kill you via liver failure.
If the new tumor doesn’t get too large before the transplant, and if she qualifies for a transplant, and if she doesn’t die waiting for it like 10 Americans do every day, there’s a high chance she would perk up, become more of the way she used to be, when I was a child, before disease robbed me of her physically and mentally. A friend of hers got a new liver, and within 2 days he went from looking like he was on death’s door (or doing a good impression of Christopher Walken at the least) to looking like a normal, healthy guy of his age. However he only got three more years, dying due to kidney failure. But they were a good three years.
If those big if’s above go through, I will at least get a few good years with my mother, a chance to know her as one healthy adult to another, a hope that’s been routinely dashed since I was 14.
The best case would be modern medicine coming through with a treatment that would have been considered miraculous in the last century. Unfortunately, those are still rare and experimental.
As soon as I get the contact form fixed, I will set up a page where articles on the scientific progress in treating liver disease and cancer can be submitted and tracked. I would appreciate anything you can find.
This is the worst blog post I’ve ever had to write. And there’s an unfortunately large chance I’ll have to write much worse ones.
Tags: liver cancer, mom