Saturday morning I received horrible news that my best friend of 17 years had lost her father. Since early October he had been extremely ill due to the malfunction of his liver. He had been in and out of the hospital for months, and went back into ICU care the week of Christmas. There were hopes that he could make it. We finally found out that he was going to be put onto a transplant list, and that provided his health got better, he might actually make it.
I’ve never truly known what all entails of a liver transplant, or hell, any transplant. Amy told me the details that they put into consideration his physical health–whether or not he could survive the transplant AND recovery. Even with that into consideration, there were other things like mental health of him and his immediate family. The procedure that he would’ve gone through would have had part of his family member’s (whomever matched blood type, liver size, et. al.) liver grafted to his own liver to let it regenerate.
But he took a turn for the worse not even a week after finding out that he could go on the transplant list. On Christmas Day, as I was driving home from my grandparent’s house, Amy called me to tell me that they were taking him off of dialysis, the transplant list, and essentially let him die peacefully. It was just shocking to hear this, because I mean, it’s her Dad, and even though you know people eventually die, you just still think they’re going to live to be old and grouchy.
Saturday morning he passed away at 7:30 in the morning from his severe liver failure. I still can’t fathom that he’s not here anymore. It’s just the most surreal and intense feeling, knowing that someone has moved on in life… That they’re no longer there. I can’t even begin to fathom the emotions that Amy and her mom are going through, and hell, their family. The wake is going to be on Wednesday, and the funeral on Thursday. It’s going to be hard to get through those two days, because I’m already emotional over it. To see their grief, pain, sadness is going to tear me apart.
It’s just hard because you don’t know what to say, or do.. You can just be there and hope that it’ll provide some sort of comfort for them. Even if it’s just for a few minutes.