Caregivers sharing thread-renewed-#4

Reesie-welcome to HW. Sorry that your husband is sick. Liver disease is terrible.

I can understand the true love sentiment, but what your husband needs is tough love. Switch out those beers for ensure nutritional drinks. See that he is taking the proper vitamins. Encourage him to attend AA or similar.

You mentioned that he is 60. That is still fairly young. He still has alot of living to do! Stopping all alcohol will improve his health. If he continues to drink, his complications will only get worse, and his suffering increase.

Again, welcome to HW.

Emma

reesie, i am sorry that your husband is sick. my husband also has liver disease due to alcohol. you have found a great place to come, people here are so informative and helpfull when you are dealing with this disease either by being the partner or the patient. my husband refused to stop his drinking, so he had to go and live elsewhere. the continuous drinking may have been his wishes but i loved him so much i refused to watch what was going to be the inevitable. this is a nasty often prolonged disease and i could not be a party to him killing himself in that way.
a few weeks after my hubby moved out, the absoloute unbelievable happened. he decided to quit drinking!!
i will never know for sure but i like to believe it was the fact that he lost us and his comfort zone, which spurred him to give up alcohol.
it has been tough and he has slipped, but he remains on course for the moment and with each day that passes he is a step closer to coming home and hopefully a step farther away from death.
your choice is a brave one but i just thought i would share with you that tough love can work.
thoughts and prayers for you and your family.
xxnatasha.xx

Hello,

My husband, Ron, had his liver transplant February 3, 2011.  Alcohol wasn't involved but he had the full blown ESLD.  Ascites, vomiting blood, fatigue, weight loss, muscle mass loss, high amonia levels and finally liver cancer. 

His evaluation was 1.5 days in the hospital - he was admitted and spent one night there.

One thing from your post stood out - the fact that your husband falls asleep during conversation and yet he still drives.  Yes, that is independence - but it is so very dangerous.  Think of the other drivers - their families....please get him off the road.  I know it's a difficult thing to do -  just before Ron's surgery, the doctors told him - no more driving, and I drove him every where.  That's just a fact of life.

I wish you the best.

Pam

There are two women on a transplant forum I'm on that received livers with no prior problems. Both came into an ER feeling ill and woke up later with a new liver. According to both, no one knows why their livers failed. I'd be willing to bet their evaluations were less than a day. The exception(s) to the rule.

Thanks for the reminder, Pam.

David, I'd say those ladies were very lucky to have had livers with a good match available to them. Serendipity.

Hugs,
Connie

Natasha-
I hope things improve too. And that family members can encourage your husband to keep up with his hard work. I can only imagine that if he feels his health is deteriorating that he might think what the heck and go back to drinking, but as we have both read here, that will only make his situation worse. If he can hang in there, his health can stabilize...remind him about Mr. Zif/Rick and he has come back from the brink.
Keep safe.

Emma

thank you connie, and emma for your thoughts.
connie, thankyou for explaining, that makes perfect sense!! i will explain this to hubby and i hope he will understand too! thank you!! hope you are doing well.xxnatasha.xx

I wanted to add - I was probably worse off after about the 3 month sober date. So things got worse before better - I hope this helps.

Natasha-

Remember that Rick was given 3 months...that was 3 years ago.

MamaLama's husband was also told if he continued to drink he would be gone by Christmas (this was last October). He stayed sober and received his new liver on May 1st.

Never give up the fight.

Emma

Pop in the fact im assuming I have it then - im not fussed.
(or delete)

Eitherway - giving up booze can make one feel ill for months. Thats the point really. I felt like a dogs dinner.

Posting for new member, Blonde aka Elle:

Starting another post as for the last was dealing with what's going on with my husband and maybe there's another thread for the caregiver and their emotions but I'm new to this forum and not sure ...this is my story from the beginning :

I'm 34 a single mom of two children 10 and 12. I got a divorce and was a single parent for about 4 years. I met al my new husband in may of 2010 . We hit it off had a lot in common and things were going great. He and my kids adored each other ...perfect right? ? Well things moved quickly. We lived about a hour apart from each other in August 2010 he decided to move closer to me ..we started looking at houses to rent
Found a perfect one close to my parents ..but not too close!! Christmas 2010 he asked me to marry him. So I couldn't imagine life without him so I said yes ....we started planning for a wedding for may 2011.....it was something important to me and my family as we are very close ..his family is far way in another state and his mother and sister both told him they weren't going to make the wedding So he pushed to Just go to Vegas in February and get married ..at this point he seemed healthy with Just some problems of being annemic. So I agreed and my family was upsset because they wanted to be a part of It. But they eventually got over it ...keep in mind we had never had sex we were waiting for marriage ...I know now a days that doesn't happen but I'm a Christian and we were trying to do it the right way. So we got married Feb 23 2011 ....only 2 months later is when he became really ill throwing up blood and on April 19. I found him in a pool of blood barely alive ..I called 911 and he was rushed to nearest hospital. There I was told by the doc call my family my husband was a very sick man and probably wouldn't make it. But he did. He survived the transport to hospital where they did tips procedure ..there I found out for th's first time he has hepatitis c and last stage liver disease ..I called his sister to see if they were wrong because my husband told me none of this
.his sister said he never told you That ..I was like no! !!! So here I am not married very long to someone whom is in end stage of liver disease ...whom I've never had sex with .....going through all this part of me is so mad for not being honest with me but I feel So sorry for him as he deteriorates right in front of me ...he's not even the same man I married ..I'm so confused and my kids have been through alot with all this going on we Just recently lost our house because the added financial stress was killing me ..he's no longer working gets little bit of disability and I work rarely due to his doc appt er and hospitals stays ...my family and friends think It was cruel for him to not be upfront with all this even his own sister has told me this on several occasion ....I'm all He has but ...this is so trying ..guess I Just had to vent this out and get outside opinions on my situation as I know my family is only worries about me to some extent ......I hate That I feel terrible and wish me and my children weren't in this terrible situation but then I realize he's wishing he wasn't going through this horrible disease and how can I be So selfish to want a normal life ....I've never really told him my thoughts on all this cause it would really hurt and he's in enough pain ... I'm sad ..mad and So emotional ....Just wondering if anyone has dealt with anything like this.

Blonde504/Elle  

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