The Sober Widow

Chapter 8

Did that catch your attention? 😊 I promise I will try to make this post the least gross and disgusting that I can, but the reality is…a lot of blood was shed in the past year (both literally and figuratively).

First, I think I mentioned previously that I suffered from nose bleeds quite frequently. This is common with a failing liver (I’m not sure about the nose part, specifically, but a sick liver does not have the capacity to tell the blood to clot, so if you bleed, be prepared to have a lot of bandages on hand – sometimes, it just gushed out).

Often, there was a legitimate reason for the nosebleed, like blowing your nose too hard to get rid of those damn scabs that form, or maybe it was a sunny day on Wednesday and the nose decided it was time to get active. Either way, I went through so many tissues, you wouldn’t believe it. And if I told you that I actually had to have blood transfusions to make up for not only the loss of blood but also the loss of hemoglobin, would you believe that? I’m so lucky for a lot of reasons, but a big one is that I have a very common blood type, so it is easy to match (especially regarding the new organs).

The clotting issue means that the nosebleed takes forever to finally stop, and there were times that I just let it bleed into a sink by bending over it until it stopped. Honestly, it was just easier than constantly having to stench the flow with tissues. But oh man, the stains on my pajamas and bedding! Most of the time, the stains came out but not always, and since they were cheap pajamas it was the least of my worries.

Also, in the hospital I was subject to two blood draws a day, with at least 6-10 vials being taken each time. So the amount of blood lost that way was also fairly consequential, when you add it to all the other blood lost. I have so many small scars all over my hands and arms, not just from the constant labs but also the two to three IVs that were hanging on me at all times. And my veins ROLL. They’re very shy and when they see the needle coming for them, they try and hide. Most phlebotomists can handle this easily, as this is what they do. Nurses and doctors – pretty good but I’ve had multiple tries with getting one IV in. In fact, shout out to Dr. Ivan in the ICU who I absolutely loved, who was so patient and kind when he had to insert a third IV into me and used an ultrasound machine to find a worthy vein and not put me through too much trauma. It took him eight tries to get it in, but he was so nice about it I couldn’t even whimper.

There will be a separate post about dialysis because it is so involved, but suffice it to say for now that I had to have a semi-permanent port installed in the left side of my chest so that they could hook up the dialysis machine quickly. It is so invasive and painful that they had to give me general anesthesia in order to do that. I have a small scar there now as a reminder not to ever abuse my kidney enough to need it again. But oh, the blood. Luckily it clotted and stopped fairly quickly.

The picture I posted here is my arm after many scars and bruises from the onslaught of needles. The bruises have faded but you can still see the scars. Since I can’t sunbathe at all due to the risk of skin cancer, I do plan on getting a spray tan at some point this summer, so I hope to camouflage the scars that way! Hey, no one ever said I was too modest.

And finally, let’s talk about the teeth I had to have pulled. You wouldn’t think so, but there were two that had to come out. One was because my crown fell off when I ate a beet chew. (Try it! They said. It’s so good for you! They said. Then it took my crown off.) The tooth had to go because even if I wanted to replace the crown (no point, since it was all the way in the very back of my molars), it was too late to do so once I was on the transplant list). And the other one had experienced an abscess recently and since there was still a risk of infection, it had to go. The worst word you can say to a transplant patient is “infection.”

The tooth that was all the way in the back was not only hard to extract, but also difficult to sew up once there was a hole there. While I did everything right and followed all instructions, the stitches came loose and it bled EVERYWHERE. I couldn’t stop it. After three hours of this (at 1:00 in the morning) I called the emergency line and the dentist on call had me come right back in, where he reapplied the stitches. Overall, it was super painful and again, a load of blood.

If I had to choose two words to describe the fall of 2023, they would be “pain” and “blood.” At least that’s what it felt like.

Well, there’s another chapter of my life last year. Which leads me right into my next post on how I dealt with these new developments. Thanks for following along!