don't talk to me about liver

by: poppyseed

Sat Sep 26, 2009 at 08:00:00 AM PDT

i know liver. i remember how my favorite professor told me of clutching at her for two full years, trying to buy a little more time. i know that once her kidneys veered off course there was not stopping it. the desk just had to point at her bed, at her family, now at least twenty-five strong, filing past her bed as if it were a state funeral, but not yet. they held her hands and cried softly as her body which wasn't quite a body yet but wasn't really their grandmother anymore either softened under the morphine i gave her because it can't really be comfortable, can it. it certainly wasn't from where i sat.

she hadn't done anything wrong, not that it matters but we both know that in some sense, yes, it kind of does, kind of makes things worse. her immune system attacked her liver. maybe some day someone will know why but for now no one does and for years there wasn't much to do no matter how smart or careful or well-read you were and it was all leading up to this and trapped behind my desk i had to see it all.