I'm going to pick up where I left off. I didn't mean to keep everyone hanging! His two week stay at Baylor-Dallas was torture! It was test after test, bloodwork, scans, etc...EVERYDAY!! I stayed with Casey every day and every night. I was NOT going to leave his bedside!! We became very acquainted with all the doctors and nurses over the two week stay. Doctors were just amazed at how young Casey was and kept going in his room to ask him all sorts of questions to try to get to the bottom of his illnes. Someone that young and healthy should not be having the type of liver issues that he was having! They were really really confused. Seeing them scratch their heads in disarray was not very comforting! They had no clue why Casey was so sick or why his liver function was so low!
All this confusion and "not knowing" was taking a toll on me! Did he have cancer? I could not bare the thought!! I would quickly stop thinking about it possibly being cancer and move on to better thoughts...was his illness minor and treatable with antibiotics and other medications? How long is he going to be hospitalized? Is he going to make it? There were so many things going through my head...day after day...day in and day out...in a tiny room...having to sleep on an uncomfortable recliner...with doctors and nurses going in and out at all hours of the morning and night...NO SLEEP! UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Everything that happend during this two week stay sort of just runs together. It all seems like a blur...a living nightmare...totally surreal! Only certain events stand out in my mind...like the panic attack you all KNOW was coming after having read the above paragraph!!! I was just sitting there and all of a sudden became very fidgety and my chest felt heavy. I couldn't sit still; if I did, I had to be tapping my fingers on the window sill or tapping my foot on the floor. I had restless legs, restless arms, restless everything! I started to pace...looking out the window then turning around to look at Casey lying in bed and nervously smile at him. I couldn't let him know what I was feeling. He was going through enough already. Suddenly, I had the most outrageous urge to cry! I mean full out bawling and sobbing where I couldn't catch my breath. Then I started to hyperventilate! GREAT!!! Casey had to call the nurse in to help me! She took my blood pressure and it was very high. She basically told me just to take deep breaths and relax and to GO HOME to get some rest. I didn't want to leave Casey...but I knew he would be fine. I had to go home and take care of myself so I could be strong enough to withstand what we were both about to go through.
After the doctors tested all they could think of and still could come to no valid conclusion; they diagnosed Casey with Acute Liver Failure of Unknown Etiology. His liver was shriveled up and had only ten percent functionality when he was first admitted into Baylor. He did not have Hepatitis of any kind and the failure was not alcohol related. Doctors did not know what made his liver fail! It seemed, in some Doctors' opinions, as if some virus had attacked it, did its damage, and left! I distinctly remember two or three doctors coming in about a week and half into his hospital stay to break the news to us. I stared blankly at the doctor as he spoke, not fully comprehending the bomb he had just dropped! Casey's hepatologist, whom we will refer to as Dr. Who Doesn't Swallow His Spit (Keep reading for an explanation.), is the one who broke the news to us. I had to concentrate really hard to understand his words because of his accent, not to mention trying to get past his "open mouth slurp" after each sentence. OMG...that was annoying! Words cannot properly describe the sounds he made with his mouth while talking. The bomb he had dropped was that Casey's liver function was now only at 4% and that he was going to need a LIVER TRANSPLANT! Just having had gone through my mother's kidney transplant, this was not exactly what I wanted to hear. But, at the same time I was happy that his disease was not deadly and could be cured with a transplant. Before we knew what was wrong and that transplant was an option, the thoughts of him possibly dying were in the back of my mind. Casey remained positive, or perhaps he was just putting on a brave front for me...but after finding out that a transplant was an option and that it wasn't cancer, I was so much happier! The word CANCER was just so terminal and I was SO thankful that it was just liver failure which could be cured with a transplant. Little did I know what was going to happen a year later... "Isn't it ironic? Don't ya think?"
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