Dear Santa...

Top of my crimbo list this year was two things, in equal joint place. Liver and pancreas. I don't normally do 'soppy'/ Tiny Tim / whole-heartedness/ 'as long as I have my health i'll be the happiest girl alive' and all that vomit inducing selflessness, but at this point in time, I really don't care a jot about the Coca-Cola commercial christmas. Saying that, I have asked for Supernatural on DVD and a few more JG Ballard books and a short pink wig. But that's it (lols). All I can think about is some new organs and how that would be the best present EVER. This would be a good year for Oliver Cromwell to return from the dead and cancel christmas (fucker), because I wouldn't care. I just want my new lease of life to begin. OK, after my Christmas dinner calorie fest and Downton Abbey preferably... I keep having this morbidly funny image of Santa dropping down the chimney dressed in scrubs and brandishing beautifully wrapped organs, before performing surgery between mince pie and milk breaks. Enough. Sorry.

I remember last christmas, when I had just received my transplant assesment letter through the post, I thought 'Next crimbo I might have sparkly new organs!', but that glittery dream hasn't materialised. Still, i'm awfully thankful i'm not fighting tooth and nail for my life, like many waiting for lungs are. At this point I think it's not a matter of saving my life, but enhancing it. Of course, like failing organs do, without a call my liver will eventually pack up and leave town, like in my Ballard book, south into his inescapable and deadly inferno. A place of no return. But not yet. It's just slow, and groggy, and tired. Like me. Very tired. And making my life shit.

I went out to celebrate the end of the world the other day, and even though the world didn't end, I felt pretty apocolyptic. My hangover lasted two days, despite alternating alcohol with diet coke and water. It's ridiculous, thanks liver. I really didn't drink that much at all, but it felt like I had been on a week long bender. And don't give me funny looks, because I know exactly what i'm doing. (Plus i'm getting a new one, innit Santa.) It had been about a million years since i'd mustered up enough courage to venture out, but i'm pleased I did, as it was quite an eventful night, seeing people (well, one person in particular) I haven't seen in what feels like an eternity.  Still, no amount of alcohol induced fun is worth feeling so terrible, nor is it worth the chance of a liver meltdown. I dread the day I wake up, look in the mirror, and see that sickly yellow sheen again.

Anyway, I'll banish these morbid thoughts, especially as it's Christmas eve eve. It's odd how at these milestone occassions positive thoughts of forgetting troubles and having fun collide with an inevitable undertone of sobriety as all that is important to you becomes so prominent in your mind. It puts things in perspective I suppose. About what's really important. I'm not saying a Supernatural box-set isn't important, but you can live without it. And there's some things you can't. So to all those hanging by the telephone, I hope it rings soon. But until it does, enjoy the mince pies. And the turkey. And the mulled wine, and the roasties and the parsnips and the cranberry sauce and OMFG IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!

Life in a onesie

This is one of those blog posts where I apologise for not having much to say, but still go and write it. So, I don't have much to say. Sorry! I've been living under the radar, where it seems all combinations of tedious bugs, bacteria, colds, coughs, liver troubles and hypos can't find me. I've been steady for quite a while which even though dull and doesn't make for a good blog post, suits me just fine. More than fine. My stealth manoeuvres (which mainly consist of moving from bed to the sofa to the fridge and back again wearing a fetching leopard onesie) may not lead for the most exciting of lives, but a trouble free existence. That's all I want right now. An existence suits me just fine; Life can resume when Dr Frankenstein has worked his magic. I still call a fridge raid and shuffling round the house a 'stealth manoeuvre'  to inject some excitement into the banal... and queue Mission Impossible theme. Little pleasures.

I've had no calls, not even false alarms. I do feel a little forgotten about in momentary flashes of woe, but transplants are not something you take personally. These moments sometimes extend into reflective and contemplative episodes, where the enormity of it all and that rare pang of fear jumps in and surprises me. I don't get it often - excitement swirled with a christmas eve-type of anticipation tends to be the overriding feeling. Mixed into this concoction comes the frustration. Not just frustration at these months of waiting, but at how house-tied I am because of how I feel, and how I look. It's tiring and draining physically and mentally. If i'm being honest I think it's more mentally at the moment. I'm probably looking 9 months pregnant now, and you can't hide a bump that big. Trust me, i've tried! It sends me into a dark downward spiral, that before I was put on the list, I could hardly clamber up out of. Like Alice drowning in her tears in a similarly hypo-ish Wonderland. Since i've been on the list that sinking feeling doesn't swoop down on me quite so intensely as before, because now I now that it won't be like this forever. But until then, it's still easier to melt back into a onesie and a duvet and hide myself away from the world. When I sleep 13 hours (plus naps!), that's not too hard really...