Thoughts on the transplant....(VENT)

This is a venting of my thoughts....so if you want only updates....don't read this.

The news of a transplant is bittersweet. I am excited about it on one hand, and terrified of it on the other. There are so many postive things that I can see coming out of it and very few negative things. The problem lies that they negative things are huge in my opinion.

In the excited hand, I am ready to get better. I am ready to have energy again. I am ready to wake up everyday and not wonder if people are going to notice my jaundice. I am ready to wake up and not wonder if I am going to get sick, or be in some pain today. I am ready to be able to walk with my head high with the level of confidence that I held before I was diagnosed. I am ready to be told that I look good and people mean something other than I look better than I did last time they saw me. These are a few of the things that I am excited about when I think of getting my transplant. This will be a world of change for me and I can't wait until these things are a reality.

In the terrified hand, as vain or fickle as it may seem, I am most scared of the scar. I have always taken pride in the way I looked and am self-conscious enough about the four small scars on my stomach from the gallbladder surgery. I know that it is pride and just as people have told me, I know that I should not be so prideful about a scar. I think that to be successful you have to take pride in certian things, and the way that I have taken care of my body and myself is one of those things.

Dont get me wrong, there are other things in which i take pride. Most of my pride lies in my faith, my family, my life, my friends, and my career, among other things. Don't get me wrong, having a scar will not put me in a straight jacket or on suicide watch. I do worry about my reaction to a scar that runs the length of my ribs.

Being the self-conscious person that I am, I know that I will be worried about what people are thinking if I take my shirt off at the pool or the beach. I am certain that with my new found energy I will take even better care of my body. I just wonder if I will be able to take the same amount of pride in it as I do now.

The postive outcomes far outweigh the negative when it comes to me getting the transplant, so of course I am going to go through with it. I just wonder how I will handle the scar after I am healed. I guess these are things that time will tell, and I can only rely on God to come through and give me the peace he has always given me since I began my fight against PSC. He has been the very present help that he promised he would be, so I'm just going to keep trusting him knowing that no matter what He will not give me more than I can handle alone.

These are thoughts that are hard to talk about so I write them. Makes this whole process a little easier to stomach.