One of My Livers Goes to the Psych Ward: Liver Transplant Story and More!

By Ralph Meewes

The book takes you on a seventy-year-olds quest to receive a lifesaving liver transplant. He also details his unexpected stint in a psych ward, driven there by reaction to a prescribed steroid drug. He, therefore, had to make health management his second career.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524560065

Ralph Meewes

Ralph Meewes, a retired purchasing manager, discovers two cancerous tumors on his liver. He discusses his many years of medical challenges to sustain a quality life.

Book preview

One of My Livers Goes to the Psych Ward

Liver transplant story and more!

Ralph Meewes

Copyright © 2016 by Ralph Meewes.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 11/11/2016

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1 The Call

Chapter 2 The Author

Chapter 3 History

Chapter 4 French Doctors

Chapter 5 Attitude About Doctors

Chapter 6 Mayo Trip

Chapter 7 Mayo in Jacksonville

Chapter 8 Melbourne, Florida

Chapter 9 Trip

Chapter 10 Hoops and Hurdles

Chapter 11 Surgery Day

Chapter 12 Veteran Nurse

Chapter 13 New Year’s Eve, 2008

Chapter 14 Post Surgery

Chapter 15 Psych Ward

Chapter 16 Rush

Chapter 17 Jack

Chapter 18 Urine Test

Chapter 19 Shirt

Chapter 20 Painting

Chapter 21 Psych Ward Observations

Chapter 22 Liver Rejection

Chapter 23 Life’s Twists and Turns

Chapter 24 Inclusion Body Myositis

Chapter 25 Miracles

About the Book

About the Author

Chapter 1

The Call

Settle down, Sparky!

Yeah, I know that a human has only one liver. What’s this about two livers? Well, anyway, a human can have two livers or more; however, preferably one liver at a time. Yes, I had a transplant. I had one liver for seventy years. Now my second liver has been with me for about eight years but is only forty-nine years old; it is a discounted liver from Puerto Rico, not really, because the acquisition costs of this liver was $48,000. Now I like beans and rice—just kidding. The $48,000 cost of the liver was a part of the $250,000 hospital and surgery bill. Only my new liver got to go to the psych ward.

Christmas Day, 2008

It’s a beautiful day. It’s a beautiful day in Florida, what a revelation that is. It’s Christmas Day of 2008, and we are at my son’s house in Tallahassee, Florida, and it is nine o’clock in the morning. The cell phone rings before I answer. Earlier in the month, I had e-mailed my three boys that I was going to disrupt their Christmas. I had told them I was going to have my liver transplant before the year was up. Of course, I did not know that for sure because no one knows where the next liver will go. To explain the liver waiting list is a little like explaining income tax. The US is split up into eleven regions. Your liver will most likely come from the region in which you live. Florida is in region three along with five other nearby states and Puerto Rico.

Patients are listed according to blood type, body size, and medical condition (how ill they are). Each patient is given a priority score based on three simple blood tests. However, liver cancer has another priority system. UNOS in Richmond, Virginia match donated organs with transplant candidates for everyone in the United States.

I had gone on the transplant list on September 23. On December 23, ninety days later, I would gain three more MELD points—Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (a great name—uh!) which predicts survival for patients with advanced liver disease. The higher the number, the closer you are to death. Shit! But the higher your priority for getting a liver, a double-edged sword. Having a common blood type at that point, I would be number one on Shands ninety-five-person waiting list. Before I answer the cell phone, I had not had my phone for a long period of time. And the reason I got the cell phone was so Shands would be able to get a hold of me in case a liver became available. There are numerous stories about people getting notification of a liver. One guy on the waiting list went to a health club and threw his cell phone in the locker and went to work out for an hour and a half. Unfortunately, his cell phone was sitting in the locker ringing and ringing. When he finally got back to his locker and discovered he had a call from Shands Hospital, he quickly called them and was fifteen minutes too late, and the liver went to someone else. On the other side of the coin, a