General
Beyond Survival
May 14, 2025
in General
“Balancing Health, Work, and Life Purpose: How Has This Evolved Years After Transplant?”
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I am 5.5 years post liver transplant. The HCC came back in a lymph node near my heart 2 years ago. That was cutout. Now the HCC settled in my lower back, I start radiation treatments in two weeks. They are the major items. I can still travel in my motorhome and ride my motorcycle.
This is a great topic and it ties into last night's discussion from the support group about whole person care. For me, getting sick made me see myself as a whole person and that my body and mind has needs. Since I ws diagnosed as a teenager, I was always laser focused on school and sports at that time. It was hard to snap out of it and become self aware of how my body is feeling and what is going on with my mind- especially understanding how I was processing information. Hitting the wall with my health and needing to shift focus onto myself made me realize that without a balance, I can't accomplish anything in school or sports. I needed to take care of myself in order to do those things. Then, I saw just how frustrated I was with this and how unaware I was of the anger and frustration building in my body. My major lesson is that goals and purposes wil change and I just have to be patient. If I don't adjust to what my body needs and give myself the space to bounce back mentally and physically, I will will never advance in any career or be healthy enough to enjoy life with my friends and family. My priorities and needs will change and that's okay.
Curious to hear how these aspects have evolved for others over the years.
Transplant Patient
I was going to say @Dom it ties into what we talked about!
I think transplant saved my life not only in the sense I'm not dead but also in that it was my wakeup call to take my mental and emotional health seriously. I've been sick all my life but I didn't realize how bad it was until transplant let me move out of survival mode enough to start healing. My transplant, and the events leading up to my needing it, kick started me into grief work, the mind body connection, working with the nervous system, and it's unravelled from there. Post transplant I've taken that into a number of somatic psychology certifications and now the mind body connection is literally my full time job. I'm a completely different person than I was before my transplant.
@AliEm14 Yess!!! For so many of us it gave us a new sense of purpose. Then, to tie it back to you convo with Laszlo, it changes how we see ourselves. On the flip side of that, for patients like you and I, it almost becomes hard to pinpoint the what part of the journey really influences the change in perspective when you've been sick throughout all these major milestones that adolescants go through.