Liver failure: can happen out of the blue
 

62 year old man, beautiful house in the country, pretty and sweet wife. Wine bottles everywhere, the man had a swollen and tight belly, his legs like tree trunks with pitting edema, his skin dark yellow, whites of his eyes yellow. Liver failure makes the body look monstrous, like something out of a horror film. Out of the blue this man started getting sick. He'd already lost his job and had multiple problems piling up, one after the other. Now he was having trouble getting off the couch, was nauseous all the time and couldn't keep food down. His wife was anxious, had a look like a deer in the headlights, there wasn't enough time to catch up emotionally to what was happening. It seemed one moment they were having parties with wine flowing, music, golf course events, concerts and good times...and suddenly she is buying diapers, asking for a walker, trying to figure out how to take care of him. In a frantic attempt to fix things, he quit drinking three weeks before. He quit drinking too late. He died a week later.

And though he didn't say it, I'd guarantee with 99% certainty that in the last 4 weeks of his life he didn't think all that drinking was actually worth it.

Stay sober today!

Wow, what a sad story!

The spouse of one of my co-workers died of liver failure at 45 years old. His 3 school age children and his wife watched him turn yellow and die just like the man you describe above. He kept drinking right up to the final day when he was taken to the hospital to die, which lasted about a week.

So while it can certainly come "out of the blue", there are a lot of indicators leading up to it that we all recognize.

Yes there are indicators, a lot of them seem like a more severe form of the mild symptoms we get all along the course of our drinking (abdominal pain, heartburn, bloating and swelling). Usually by the time jaundice sets in though, you're in trouble. Not always, but it's a bad sign.

Sorry: I posted that to remind myself where I'm headed if I drink again. Dying is one thing, death by my own hand when I have a family that counts on me is quite another.

Could've been me. Thanks for the reminder of why I choose to live sober.

Really scary. I sometimes get mild pain just under my rib cage after drinking. Especially lately because I'm drinking two bottles of wine every second night. I really need to stop, I don't want to ruin my liver! Q_Q

I have seen at least two close friends die from liver disease. A lot of pain, puffed up bellies, death knocking at their doors. The wreckage of the past can be horrendous.

Be grateful if we escaped.
Stay that way
for
the liquid devil is always waiting.

M-Bob

After spending a week in the hospital with acute alcoholic hepatitis, and strapped to a bed for 3 days because of DT's, I still decided to go out one last time. That time I was driving one minute and on my back in the hospital hours later, in a neck brace and about to be airlifted to a head trauma unit in another hospital. Even that wasn't enough. When I got back home from the hospital, I saw my half empty bottle of vodka on the kitchen counter right where I'd left it. I didn't hesitate for a second to do what I'd always done. It was then that it hit me how insane I was. I had a broken neck, couldn't see out of my left eye, I had no car, no job, couldn't see or communicate with my children, and what's the first thing I reached for? The very thing that caused all the trouble to begin with. I poured the rest of the bottle down the drain and haven't touched it since. That was 4/16/2015.

My point is that the nature of this illness is such that we frequently forget, or ignore, the pain it causes us until it's too late. We keep pushing our luck. When we pour the alcohol into our system, it's even easier to forget it because that's a big part of what alcohol does. I've met many who were at death's door due to liver failure/cirrhosis. Sometimes they make it, sometimes they don't. I lost a former girlfriend to liver cirrhosis when she was only 38. It really is a long, ugly, painful way to go.

You remind me of me.
Have a blessed sober day,
M-Bob

when i went to the hospital this last time i had pitting edema and fluid in my belly. The dr said that the edema wasn't necessarily an indication of liver failure...big people can get it sometimes solely based on being on your feet too long, the summer makes appendages sometimes swell, etc....The fluid in my belly though, that was concerning.. My last check up, the liver was back to 100% normal function.

how i ever came back from that is completely beyond me. well, i do know, but this isn't a thread about miracles. i remember telling my wife...i don't think there's any coming back from this...20 years on fill tilt. i thought i was there to die.

I am so blessed to be here today.