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Excerpt from the Book
“Dr Stefanelli, your brother is on line 3.”
“Okay, tell him I’ll be right there.”
“Look Irv, I’m real busy, I promise you I’ll renew your Ativan. I have to go.”
“What’s up, Tony?”
“Did you know Mom had a gastric endoscopy yesterday?”
“I heard she was going in for a scope. Did they find anything?”
“The doctor said if she stops drinking she may last 6 months.”
“Wow. He really said that? That’s brutal. I would have hoped he could have been a little more tactful.”
“Yeah, everybody’s freaking out. It’s like all of a sudden there’s this big surprise nobody expected, but she’s had hepatitis for years and continued to drink. Everybody makes choices in life and then they get upset when they have to pay the consequences. Didn’t you tell her last month she needs to stop drinking?”
“Yeah, I went to this conference on hepatitis C. This national expert on hepatitis talked on how you could practically live a normal life span as long as you didn’t drink. His position was that if you had hepatitis C and drank more than one glass of wine a year you met his criteria for alcoholism, and needed treatment.”
“That little statement is going to cause you trouble. Well, Mom obviously didn’t listen since she’s been drinking every night. I’ll bet she got mad when you suggested she stop drinking.”
“She got all pissed off and told me to mind my own fucking business. I had to tell her I was just passing along information and that she was a big girl and could make whatever informed decision she wanted. That got her to calm down.”
“Dad says she needs a new liver.”
“Well, I suspect the doctor saw varices, which would mean her liver is mostly scar tissue and would have very little viable tissue left. If she stops drinking completely there is a chance her liver could regenerate, but that’s a long shot. Chances are a liver transplant is her only option.”
“Dad says he’s going to get her a liver no matter what it takes. I don’t know where these delusions are being generated from. Hell, what idiot would transplant a liver into Mom? She’s 72 years old, drank her liver to death, and has Hepatitis C. Not to mention that her lungs are shot from 50 years of smoking. Dad says he’s taking her out to Pittsburgh to have her evaluated for transplantation because they’re supposed to have the best liver program in the world. Like I said, he’s lost his mind.”
“Well that’s probably not a bad idea since Tommy Caccarelli is at the University of Pittsburgh,” I said.
“Oh yeah, what’s he doing out there?”
“He’s a transplant surgeon on the liver service.”
There was a moment of silence before I heard Tony say, “Holy shit, he really does have an ace up his ass.” |
