No Tylenol Please

I'm feeling a little down today. My left shoulder is hurting me, as are the bottoms of my feet. The shoulder is muscle pain while the foot is nerve pain. I take Gabapentin for the nerve pain, but I have nothing but Tylenol for the muscle pain. The problem is that Tylenol does not play real well with all the other medications I take, so I don't like to take it. I can, but I have to watch out for kidney and liver damage.

This focus on kidney and liver damage is hitting home right now. Recently my nephew had a complete kidney and liver failure. He has been battling kidney disease for some time now. It finally came to a point of failure. He will need a transplant if he is to continue living. For now he is on dialysis daily, with a dialysis unit being set up at home.

Of course not all of these things are covered by our health care system. My brother thinks that it will take somewhere in the neighbourhood of $60,000 over the next year, if you include the time he has to take off work to care for his son. There will be lots of visits back and forth to clinics and hospital, along with lots of medications and home equipment. I know a lot about this, except my knowledge is around ALS support, not kidney support or liver disease.

I did offer my kidneys and liver, post-mortem. My brother feels that it might be better if I held on to them for a while. He is right in that regard. Post-mortem would definitely come sooner if it could help my nephew. Even if we did one kidney and a partial liver, my own life would become dramatically more precarious than it is now.

Of course we don't even know if I am a match, although I am the right blood type. Also, I would have to be two months without consuming alcohol before any sort of transplant could take place. Still, it would be worth it. In his early twenties, my nephew has a lot of road ahead of him, whereas I have most of mine behind me.