Wednesday, September 12, 2007

A New Reality

On Monday I took my husband to his monthly doctor's appointment. His health is bad so he has to go once a month. I missed August's appointment, but my husband told me about how great it went. He said the doctor even talked to him about a possible full recovery.

This month was a different story. There had been a hospitalization in-between, but my husband appeared to be as well now as he has been lately. According to the doctor there was a huge difference between now and 1 month ago.

At this months appointment the doctor asked if anybody had discussed transplant with us yet. My husband has cirrhosis of the liver, and his liver is shot. A couple sentences were exchanged with the doctor and he realized that Donny's not eligible to go on the transplant list yet. He only quit drinking 5 months ago and apparently it hasn't been long enough.

So the doctor talked about our new reality.

Our new reality is that Donny will never be better than he is right now. With every hospitalization his level of functioning will decrease. Eventually my husband will die of liver failure. Apparently it's slow and painful.

Our new reality is that we will never have a place of our own. We've been living with my parents trying to get our finances in order so we could afford a place. Now his health is so bad that I need help caring for him. Right now I just need emotional help, but as his needs grow so will mine.

Our new reality is that I have to give up my last hopes of us having a child. This means that I'm probably giving up all hope ever of having a child. I'm only 30, I don't want to give up.

Our new reality sucks, and there's no escaping it.

1 comment:

mielikki said...

Jamie
I wrote a blog post for you today on my blog. You should never feel guilty for staying at your husbands side. I am so sorry that I came off that way, now. If my husband were ill, I'd be right there, at the bedside, too.