Liver. Yes, that nasty meat-like substance that every mother of the 1960’s fed to her young because “it was good for them.” To build iron, or some such malarkey. Actually I think that youth-fed liver is the primary reason for sky-high baby-boomer cholesterol levels. Do you know how much cholesterol there is in liver??? Not to mention that the bribe for eating liver was the accompanying bacon and fried onions. We needed a side order of lipitor to make the meal complete. Actually, my brother Joe didn’t need the cholesterol meds, as he devised a clever hiding place for his liver. We discovered it mummified years later when the family dining table was disassembled to be refinished. He should have been called home and forced to sit at the dining room table until he ate his liver…never mind that he was pushing 40.
Handsome husband swears that liver was the first meal served to him by my Mother while we were dating. He despises liver, but he put on a cheerful face and ate not one helping, but two. And he STILL married me! Now, that's love.
At my house, we’ve been thinking of liver a lot lately. Unfortunately, it’s not the kind wrapped in plastic in the meat section at Kroger. No, this is the kind embedded in the abdomen of my daughter, Emily. Perhaps, hereafter referred to as “Liverella”. Some sort of viral gastroenteritis (for the non-medical, a bad case of the ‘rrhea and “vomicking”) seems to have affected her liver – causing it to grow to ginormous size. I mean GI-normous. You can feel it, without any trouble at all. Just hanging out, below her right rib cage. I may have to invest in a truss of some sort.
We missed the entire jaundice phase of her illness, as Liverella was in Austria, in the midst of a semester of study-abroad. Supposed to be having the time of her life. Riding the Eurorail, bopping in and out of European countries, collecting photographs, and a large assortment of luscious European chocolate to bring home to Mom. Instead she ended up bopping in and out of the Austrian healthcare system and collecting lab reports.
Imagine the experience. Hospitalization with most of the staff speaking English-lite, at best. On the night of her admission it seemed that the only English phrase the physician knew was “Have you always had trouble with your liver?” as he asked it repeatedly, despite her assurances that up to that time she and her liver had been on the best of terms. Intimate friends as it were.
Her tales of ultrasounds, x-rays, and lab work being accomplished via a medical version of pantomime would be funny, if she wasn’t family. OK, they are funny anyway, but don’t tell her I said so.
After a 3-week subsistence diet of crackers and a variety of Austrian juices, we determined that coming home might be for the best. Austrian juice sounds most interesting. Liverella reports that nearly all juices contained carrot juice, and many contain sauerkraut juice. Please tell me that sauerkraut is a generic word for cabbage. She said that the absolute worst was the beet-carrot-sauerkraut-and onion juice. She heated it up and pretended it was soup. She is now my hero for even trying to consume it. I am now her hero for buying good ol’ American apple, cranberry, and pomegranate juices. If only motherhood were always so easy.
It’s like we have another child now. We talk about her liver as though it was its own entity, with a room of its own. “How does it feel today?” “It is angry?” “Does that food make it happy?” From my perspective this is more work than a colicky baby. Luckily, (or not), it is Liverella who has to do most of the work, toting the colicky baby 24-7.
Like infant colic, we’ve been told that with time, rest, and fluids Liverella will once again return to her sweet alter-ego, Emily. In the meantime, wish her well – and please, no bacon and fried onion jokes.
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