Hi, ,

Well, I can officially and emphatically say getting a liver transplant was NOT on my 2024 bingo card, and yet here we are, a little over a month post-op. Three words remain on loop about this experience: absurd, bizarre, and surreal. I hadn’t had a history of liver issues—at least ones that were recognized—but one day in January 2024, my health fell off a cliff, to the point I was actively dying. Did I know I was actively dying? No, because the toxins from my failing liver had made it to my brain, and I had no awareness of what was happening upon the onset of the hepatic encephalopathy. By the time I made it to the (third) hospital, I apparently was in acute liver failure with hepatic coma. And this tracks because the last “conscious” memory I had was being wheeled out of my room, and then the first one after that was waking up in ICU with my family telling me I’d gotten a liver transplant.

If not for my sister, I wouldn’t be alive. I know this deep in my core. She noticed something was off when I didn’t send her my NYT Connections results over gchat (it used to be one of the first things I did in the mornings, something of a mental warmup). But she didn’t really begin to worry until twenty-four hours had passed and she hadn’t heard from me. The wrinkle in all of this was I was out of town on my annual writing retreat, a week I take so I can recharge and get a handle on what I want to accomplish for the year for SJF Books LLC. But because I’m grown and not answering a phone call or an email isn’t grounds for a “missing” person to the police, my sister had to do a lot of convincing—including writing a handwritten letter—to get the police to take her seriously. But eventually they did, and after thirty-six hours of me going radio silent with everyone, someone came to my hotel room to check on me. This was part of the last “conscious” memory I had because I could hear them, and I knew who I was, but I couldn’t say who I was. And I couldn’t remember how to operate a door. I remember wondering why I couldn’t and being very confused, but it was likely I was in grade 3 of the encephalopathy, quickly “graduating” to grade 4 (hepatic coma). But somehow, they got inside my unit, got me on a gurney, rolled me out of the room and into the elevator.

I’m very grateful I was able to get this liver—don’t get me wrong—but there is a cocktail and confluence of emotions and thoughts have made this experience fraught. I suppose it should be. I have life because someone else’s ended. I effectively “skipped the line” because I was so sick (apparently, the sickest person the transplant surgeon’s ever worked on in his career, to the point it was looking likely he’d have to deny me the liver because I was getting progressively worse the longer we waited for a liver to arrive). I put my family and friends through panic and hell because they didn’t know where I was as I was having a life-or-death emergency. My liver was failing, and I didn’t understand the symptoms I’d been noticing throughout the week to avoid the precarious position I’d been in. In fact, the last coherent note I wrote was “I’m nauseous, but hungry.” LOL, girl.

So, how am I doing now? I’m home and recovering. My sister and brother-in-law are with me. The new liver is a little larger than my native one, so my other organs are trying to figure out how to accommodate it, and the sensation of that jockeying is weird. I have medicines I’ll have to take for the rest of my life. My brain fog is slowly starting to clear, but I’m still not processing things as quickly as I had before. There was, apparently, real concern if I had permanent brain damage, but I think that concern has passed for the most part. As much progress as I’ve made in the month since the surgery, I have to remind myself this is still a marathon and not a sprint. All that to say, I don’t know when anything new or consistent will be coming from me on the SJF Books side, and there may be some appearances I have to cancel due to my health, but I do hope to continue to get better and the new liver continues to get along with me.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I can’t guarantee I’ll respond in a timely fashion, and some questions I may not want to answer or can’t answer because I don’t know. However, what I do know is I’m very grateful, very humbled, very blessed, and very lucky.

How has your 2024 been going so far? Hopefully not nearly as dramatic as mine has been! And I also hope you've had some fantastic reads happening for you too.

Speak soon,

Savannah, SJF Books