I'm Lindsay Ferrier, a Nashville writer with a passion for family travel, exploring Tennessee, and raising kids without losing my mind in the process. This is where I share my discoveries, along with occasional deep thoughts, pop culture tangents and a sprinkling of snark. Want to get in touch? Use the CONTACT form at the top of the page.
December 15, 2007
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With Hubs’s liver problems behind him, we’ve been celebrating Christmas in style these last few weeks, buying brand new outdoor decorations, going to a holiday musical, reserving tickets for The Nutcracker, and decorating what has turned out to be one of the best trees we’ve ever had. Ordinarily, we hold an annual Christmas dessert party for all of our friends, but this year with a new baby and Hubs’s illness, we decided to skip it and focus instead on our family. It’s been wonderful and, for a change, stress-free.
Or it was until Tuesday, when Hubs got the results back from his latest blood draw. He’s been feeling so good that neither of us thought anything of it; we assumed everything would be close to normal. It wasn’t. That afternoon, a nurse told him that for two draws in a row, two of the six tests they run on his blood to check his liver function had gone up. She scheduled an appointment for him on Thursday morning with the doctor so that they could “discuss his options.”
Hubs and I were left to spend the next two days in a semi-panic. Discuss his options? What was that supposed to mean? Both of us speculated endlessly as to what she could possibly have been implying, alternating between hoping for the best and fearing the worst. After weeks of normalcy, we were hurtled back to where we had been the week that Hubs had gotten fever and jaundice, the week the doctors didn’t know what was wrong with him and he almost had to be hospitalized… the week we spent at home together, outwardly trying to remain calm and to convince the kids that nothing was wrong, but inwardly freaking out because, Oh my stinkin’ heck, his LIVER wasn’t working! I cried in the laundry room folding clothes, where no one could hear me, and in the shower. What is wrong with my husband? I wondered. What if things are never the same again? What will happen to all of us? What on earth would I do without this man who is my best friend and the love of my life? It was all so surreal, so unimaginable, and I am sure that for Hubs, all of these thoughts were ten times worse than they were for me.
Fortunately, he’s been getting better. Every week, I’ve seen improvement, and now, he’s about 90% of his normal self, which we would expect given that recovery from an allergic reaction of the kind he had generally takes about three months and so far, only six weeks have passed. I tried to focus on his obvious improvement instead of on the disturbing numbers. It’s a good thing I did.
Thursday morning, the doctor told him he believed the slight increase in his levels was evidence of his liver regenerating and recovering from the damage done by the antibiotic. Hubs’s “options,” it turned out, were either having a biopsy, which the doctor still wanted to wait on, or waiting and testing his blood again in three weeks to see if the levels were finally declining again. Whew. He also said that the levels were elevated, but not severe and wouldn’t cause any lasting damage. After Hubs finally called me with the news I think I exhaled for the first time in two days.
I hate having to deal with this. I hate the stress and fear that serious illness brings with it. But it has served as a continual reminder that all of us are here on borrowed time. I made myself a (probably naïve) promise when I was a young woman that I would do my best to embrace life as a whole, both the good and the bad. Both are part of the experience. Both shape us and make us who we are. My hope, my belief is that Hubs is going to make a full recovery. I don’t believe that his body would be telling him he’s getting better if he were not. In the meantime, though, I’m doing my best to appreciate every single moment with all of the people who are important to me. This Christmas, I think, will be remembered by Hubs and me as a time when we learned how deeply blessed we are to have each other, to have our beautiful family and devoted friends, and how lucky we are to have every single day that we all spend together. I hope this holiday season that you are able to look past all the seasonal stresses and take a moment to really, deeply appreciate your family and friends in the very same way.
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