Waiting For The Dawn

Today was one of those rare days I woke up before the birds started singing, and it was still dark as pitch, the 4th quarter moon having already set. I was chanting some japa to pass the time. There was a thunderstorm and about every time I would start to doze off, a lightning bolt would strike somewhere and the clap of thunder would awaken me. Eventually, the earliest birds started singing, and soon thereafter the blackness subtly changed to a dark gray, the brahma muhurta hour was in full swing.

This past week was a turning point. I finally finished jumping through the hoops I needed to in order to be officially listed on the liver transplant list. This was a process that started last July when my specialist told me I had passed the tipping point and needed one. There were referrals, getting the medical aid lined up, all that sort of stuff, which took months. Over the last 6 weeks it has been an unrelenting barrage of interviews, testing, and procedures.

The last step was getting clearance from a dentist that all my teeth and gums were in good shape. The reason being that if a transplant was to actually transpire, they have to suppress my immune system to nothing and even a minor infection could become a serious problem. Dental work at that time is dangerous. I had to have a tooth pulled in order to get the nod from the dentist. Which needed to come out anyway. It was been bothering me for about a year, just in the hierarchy of discomfort that has been my lot, it wasn’t at the forefront. With limited resources and energy, I just hadn’t gotten around to it.

Needless to say, all this has made me even more bodily conscious than usual, so I am looking forward to have some interests other than being screened for a while. Now the waiting begins for the possibility of a transplant. Two years waiting on the list is almost normal, and 20% of people on the list don’t survive the wait. You would think this would make me more serious about things, but I prefer to not live in fear, so perhaps more denial is involved in my day-to-day consciousness than I think. So no, I am about as frivolous as ever. Might as well have a few laughs in the meantime.