Okay, I'm back. It's true what you said--Jordan was angry with himself for being in this mess, and at his body for not behaving how he wanted. For most
of our lives, he'd been the healthier one of us and helped look out for me and our mom, who also had a lot of thyroid trouble (runs in our family.) Jordan
didn't have perfect health, but he was able to get by somehow for most of his years without any prescription drugs, or a lot of doctor's visits. And he
didn't take well to any of it when he finally had to become a patient, himself. It all blew up in 2015 for us...he started leaking fluid from his legs, and
he'd gained too much weight in the abdomen. He ended up in Emergency, then as an in-patient for a couple of weeks at the county teaching hospital.
They said it was all his liver, but I really pressed them to give him more extensive thyroid tests, too, because he'd had symptoms for years that weren't
being picked up by doctors for this and treated. Finally got a med student to go after a professor doctor to order the thyroid tests--and he did have it.
But the liver was a big deal, too. Jordan vowed he'd do everything he could to avoid going back to a hospital, again. But he got hard to work with on that....
I couldn't get him to keep all the doctor appointments he should. Couldn't always get him to take all the medicines/ supplements he should've.
To be fair, the meds related to his liver were very hard on him--diuretics to knock down some of the fluid that accumulates, and lactulose, later on,
to help remove the ammonia that builds up when the liver isn't working right. Both drugs make you go to the bathroom a lot, and that was very
tiring and tough for him. And made it hard to do other things...he kept saying, "going to the bathroom is like a full-time job for me, now."
So, I get it. I still feel bad that I couldn't get him to go into the doctor as much as he should--but he'd yell at me, and I'd give up for awhile.
I should've enlisted more people to try to talk to him, but I'm not well, myself, and his two friends both said they did talk to him and he'd
shut them down on more doctoring. Truly, they need better treatments that are easier on patients for both thyroid and liver diseases (and so
many other illnesses, as well.) If I make it through all this, one thing that'll keep me going is I that I do some artwork (cartooning) and if I can
ever get it more popular where I could earn real money from it, I will put money towards the research of better treatments for liver and thyroid
diseases. No one should go through what my family has with this stuff. I don't have kids or pets to keep me going, but if I could do something
useful for others to prevent this kind of suffering, that would be something to shoot for.
It really sounds like you did a lot for Jerry, and he was lucky to have you. I'm a little shaky on my religion, but I am trying--and everyone I know who
was raised with more religion that me, no matter what religion they are, say that it's His plan how this all worked out, and that I did the best I could
with what I had to work with, at the time. So I'm trying to get that to stick in my head so I believe it. Not there yet, but I'm trying.
You're right, too, about "that talk" no one wants to hear from the doctor. With Jordan, I heard it over the phone, like four different times
from a couple of doctors...we weren't allowed at the hospital then because of the Covid-virus. The first doctor was a short-fused lady doctor
who was really awful to hear bad news from....I complained about her to a nurse later, and they got a nicer doctor to go over all this. But then
I got stuck with that mean lady doctor again, later on. And then the nicer doctor, after that. It is horrible to keep getting one awful update after
another, when just a week or so earlier, Jordan was on the transplant list, and we were waiting for his surgery. I thought right now, we'd be
helping him with the recovery phase of his transplant. What a letdown, and I know you understand this because it sounds like you went
through a lot of ups and downs yourselves, with all your husband went through. It just leaves me with an empty, sick feeling, a lot of the time.
But I'm trying to hang in there....
I hope you can find a way to hopefully avoid staying with your sister-in-law. Sounds like that would be hard to deal with, even though it'd help
with the bills. I wish there'd be affordable housing, everywhere, where it was more like a real community--especially for folks who don't
have good family and could use some good support, whether they have medical issues or have just been through a hard time, emotionally.
If I was in charge, I'd try to develop something like that. People need to look out for each other more, in everyday life. And I thank you for
kind of looking after me today, with all you wrote. It does help, and I really appreciate it. Feel free to contact me anytime if you need
to talk more....I'm not sure how you do it via this website (I'm new), but I'm sure there's a way. Best to you, Liley from SallyD.
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