During my time in student ministry I often talked with parents and our volunteers that we as adults need to make sure we are using the same dictionary as our teens. The terms we used growing up aren't the same as they were using - "going out" and "seeing each other" could mean different things to us than to the teen. It was the same as my now husband and I began dating and even continues as we move through marriage - we use different dictionary for some words like "cheap", "expensive", "not far" and quite a few more. It's as important in parenting, mentoring and marriage that we learn each others definitions for words that we have set definitions for on our own. But what happens when the other person in the relationship brings with them words you don't know at all, like Biliary Atresia, Kasai, Bilirubim, MELD, and so many more?
This was my learning curve when I met Steve. For those of you that don't know our story - we met online. We started emailing in the beginning of June 2010. By mid July he knew he might have found something worth getting more serious about so he knew he had to have an important conversation with me. So one day in July I opened an email that said something like - once you read this I will understand if you don't want to continue with our friendship... I couldn't imagine what was in the attachment. So I opened the attachment and found Steve's story.
He was born with a rare condition called Biliary Atresia, he didn't have bile ducts and or the ducts were damaged. He needed a liver that had working parts. In 1980 transplants were still fairly newer and who would want to perform a transplant on a baby? So, the doctor threw out this idea of a procedure called the Kasai and said it could buy some time until he got a little older and stronger maybe 3-5 years. Without this procedure or a transplant, his parents were told he wouldn't see age 2. So, the Kasai procedure was done and through medical assistance and the hand of God he didn't need to face a transplant until he was 20 years old. Through a series of events, unfortunately, about 6 years later his body began to reject that liver, and is today living in a state of chronic rejection.
Up to this point and time in our friendship, I was enjoying our conversation and didn't see the need of a health issue to end it - so I turned to Google and started to look up all these terms that go with liver issues and transplants. I will admit it was a little overwhelming - but with time and lots of questions my dictionary is catching up with his words. Once I got the words down the rest was left up to faith. What do I mean? Well, that's coming up next time.
This was my learning curve when I met Steve. For those of you that don't know our story - we met online. We started emailing in the beginning of June 2010. By mid July he knew he might have found something worth getting more serious about so he knew he had to have an important conversation with me. So one day in July I opened an email that said something like - once you read this I will understand if you don't want to continue with our friendship... I couldn't imagine what was in the attachment. So I opened the attachment and found Steve's story.
He was born with a rare condition called Biliary Atresia, he didn't have bile ducts and or the ducts were damaged. He needed a liver that had working parts. In 1980 transplants were still fairly newer and who would want to perform a transplant on a baby? So, the doctor threw out this idea of a procedure called the Kasai and said it could buy some time until he got a little older and stronger maybe 3-5 years. Without this procedure or a transplant, his parents were told he wouldn't see age 2. So, the Kasai procedure was done and through medical assistance and the hand of God he didn't need to face a transplant until he was 20 years old. Through a series of events, unfortunately, about 6 years later his body began to reject that liver, and is today living in a state of chronic rejection.
Up to this point and time in our friendship, I was enjoying our conversation and didn't see the need of a health issue to end it - so I turned to Google and started to look up all these terms that go with liver issues and transplants. I will admit it was a little overwhelming - but with time and lots of questions my dictionary is catching up with his words. Once I got the words down the rest was left up to faith. What do I mean? Well, that's coming up next time.
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