Ch 2 of 5: “This Is The Day That I die” – Part 2
“This person is an angel from God”
After my mother-in-law said these words — they didn’t sit well with me.
Of all the mistakes I’ve made in my life, I’m no angel.
To this point, we’ve done everything anonymously — but I could see how the “unknown” was bothering my wife’s family.
They wanted to know so they could face this person and say, “Thank you”.
The drive home on the 11th (of October 2018) was a looong one.
So much to think about. “What’s gonna happen if I’m approved”?
You wanna hear somethin’ crazy?
I knew I was approved.
I was as certain as I knew gravity existed.
16 October at 09:30
It was confirmed and in the words of miss Claudia,
“... Hey Mr Gutierrez! We’re SO glad you called — you’re approved and a PERFECT match!”
We ended up having to come back to the transplant center for one more round of tests because:
- My cholesterol was “high”.
- My 90% red meat diet and only eating once a day (sometimes every 3 days) was absurd in their eyes and not healthy
. - A particular liver enzymes was not showing up—making it hard to see how much fat was in the liver.
Can you believe they wanted to put me on a staton drug to lower my cholesterol?!
NO THANKS!
Since they couldn’t see a certain liver enzyme — I would now needed a liver biopsy — pending one more blood test.
(They would be mailing me this kit)
A liver biopsy is where they would make a small incision to extract a small piece of the liver to physically test it.
UGH!!
(Another damn test)
The kit arrived on 17 October — it was a little white box with a green and white label which read, “University Transplant Center”.
So ... Bryanna and I decided to celebrate our birthdays (the weekend of the 19th-21st of Oct) in SA.
Her brother’s BD is the 12th, my sisters the 18th, her’s is the 22nd, and mine is the 23rd, and my son’s is the 26th...
... PHEW!
I had 5 days until my next blood draw (22 Oct) and had already deployed a plan to “fix” my numbers which would blow them away.
For now, we had to plan how we’d tell her family.
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