World High Holy Days Begin June 9th

Marken and I went for our last pre-operative orientation today, getting medicines and dietary restriction for the day before, and instructions how to check into the hospital. A lot of the usual banter went on.

While there, we met a guy who 10 days ago gave 20% of his liver to his 6 month old son. He was actually walking unaided, and agreed to let Marken see his incision so he knows what he's in for. So although my surgeon, Dr. Kumar, cautioned me there is no guarantee of success, the fact they could pull it off with a 6 month old gives me a bit of hope it could work for me.

One of the things Marken is sacrificing to give me part of his liver (it will be about 60 % in our case) is a trip he had scheduled that included being in Germany for part of the World Cup. It would have been on a leave he was scheduled to take from his US Navy duty station in Italy where he has spent the last 3 years.

Personally, I really don’t have a strong desire to survive the transplant in order to practice my sadhana, to chant japa, or to serve the devotees. The dark inner secret is I only want to be able to watch some World Cup games and to again step out onto the pitch myself. The doctor said we'll probably be able to play in about a year. So motivation is there, but mostly material. Basically, Krishna knows my heart and He can decide which way it will turn out. Maybe He will have me stick around in this body just to trick me into doing something devotional. If not, I can’t really complain. It has been an interesting ride in this body.