Liver biopsy / Poem: Short Procedure Unit

Eyob L. Feyssa, MD, hepatologist

Mom, Mom! Wake up.

That was my son on Thursday, picking me up for the FINAL TEST to determine if I can have a kidney transplant from my daughter.

I'd been up all nite watching documentaries, as usual. Charlie Rose is a great one - I fall asleep after three minutes - I also learned about the great philosopher and Nazi sympathizer Martin Heidigger - the sad penurious life of Mozart, who unlike Bach or Handel, couldn't get a commission to save his life.

So I was deep in sleep when Dan came to drive me to Einstein for my liver biopsy, again, the last test needed before Sarah can be my kidney transplant donor.

We drove down Broad Street as the sun was coming up. It was seriously beautiful. My anhedonia had lifted a bit so I could appreciate beauty. There was no question that we would get lost finding the Short Procedure Room, but we made good time getting lost and getting found.

The worst part of the procedure was waiting FOUR HOURS before we could go home. I had to sit immovable to make sure Ye Old Liver was not bleeding inside. A tiny little bandage was placed over where the incision went.

I'd had a similar biop in 2006 - did cute Cesar de la Torre do it? - but I think they anesthzed me.

Lemme tell you something. All these f'g tests are not my idea. I've gotta do EVERY SINGLE THING my transplant team orders me to. I am a person who abhors going to the doctor. But guess what? They will dismiss you if you don't cooperate.

The procedure began at 8 am and was completed by 9:30. I was very thirsty, but couldn't drink or eat for an hour. Finally, the clock chimed 10:30 (Dan and I watched it tick away) and nurse Susan Leventhal The Great brought me Cranberry Juice w/ice. My, was that delicious! Guess what I consequently have in my fridge today?

Best of all, Dan and I had four long hours to talk. We talked about his job, his family, and then when he went to get me an egg salad sandwich from the cafeteria, I said, Remind me to tell you a story when you come back.

My first psychiatrist was Alex Glijansky. I saw him at Abington Hospital. I brought little Dan to an appt.

Mom, he said, can I get a snack from the vending machine?

He was very little. I gave him some change and asked Alex where the machine was. Alex explained where it was and Dan ran off.

Ah, delicious junk!

Glijansky looked at me in amazement after Dan had left. "He wasn't even afraid!" he said.

One thing about my kids....I gave them responsibility right from the get-go. At restaurants, I used to send Sarah up to pay the check when she was three.

After my liver bio, my sciatica began to feel better. I began to walk in earnest. I felt so good yesterday I wrote Xmas cards to my gentile neighbors and hand-delivered them into their mailboxes. I remember walking up the hilly driveway of Bob and Judy Masser and then over to Nancy Myers next door to the Massers.

I suddenly came upon a thick-trunked tree that rose straight to the sky and studied it a moment. What a beautiful organism I thought. A tree. How splendid. I can see that same tree right now from my living room window. I'm sitting on my couch typing.

Dyou know that last week I could not sit up due to sciatica, the most heinous pain ever invented.

Spoke to my dear friend Denis Hazam who runs a bipolar group in town. I think he's had his new kidney for about 5 years, from a cadaver, but it's beginning to fail so he's going back on the list. One other man in his group has a new kidney from lithium-ruining your kidney - and he knows of three other people. I'd like to do a Compass article about how lithium wrecks our kidneys. I don't think there's any excuse to be prescribed that drug when there was so many others out there.

I feel very good. Possibly the sciatica was a 'nervous reaction' to getting all my testing done and now that it's all over and done with, equanimity will settle back in. We have to remember our bodies heal themselves when given the chance.

SHORT PROCEDURE UNIT

Dedicated to Eyob L. Feyssa, MD

I am not the first to say that
Having had manic depression
Makes the prospect of death
Almost pleasant –
They will never understand
Nor need to,
We have skirted death so often
Looked, from our eyrie of terror,
At Her comforting arms
Waiting like a trapeze artist to
Catch us
As you have caught me today
On the operating table at Einstein Northern
They didn’t put me out
Simply numbed an area below my breast
How to describe a couple of twinges when the
Needle entered my soft white flesh
that lips have kissed
While looking up at the doctor’s face
It helps if they are kind
With amber cheeks and frequent smiles
A man from Ethiopia
We practiced the procedure together
You will take deep breaths and when I say so
You will hold your breath
We practiced like children at the playground back in
Addis Ababa
I was always a fast runner and an acrobat and so
When I chanced upon Eyob we teamed up under
The vast African skies as we did here in the
Short Procedure Room
So many surprises
Doctors and nurses all here on my behalf
Do I deserve all this attention?
My abdomen was swabbed with sweetsmelling alcohol
They knew their lines in the operating theatre
While I was an innocent in the audience
Delighted by their precision:
You’ve got your costumes on, I said,
As they slipped blue plastic garments across
Their everyday attire
And caps too like in the movies
Who watched this movie? Who recorded it?
Who felt such an urge she rehearsed it in her sleep
As he made his way across the ocean after a lottery
Chose his family
As the victors
A blue template with hole punched through
Made its way onto my body
Beneath my hospital gown
I was the target, their needle would
Pierce my white turkey-meat flesh and withdraw
A sample of tissue from a huge pulsing organ just
Below the surface called the liver
Look at that word: Liver
See in it the word “Live” – as in “I am still alive” –
Not one of your more beautiful words
Like mother or swashbuckler or ambergris
Liver has a taint of the ridiculous like
Schizophrenic or bipolar
Unlike the mighty Brain whose long-winded vowels
Sing a hosanna to its majesty
I am grateful for the quiet in the room
The patter of the talk among the two surgeons and two nurses
Gathered again on my behalf
-do I deserve to live? – have my multitude of sins not conspired
To render me undeserving? To die the slow painless kidney death I
Have been rehearsing
In the end it is the piano I remember
A grand piano on the ground floor of the
Braemer Heart Building
Ivory keys hidden as they sing out in
The winter air
Hallelujah hallelujah let this
Girl be saved