About a month ago an old acquaintance of mine sent out a mass email letting everyone know that she was in terminal liver failure.

Some time before I met her she had received a liver transplant, she had been in her mid to late teens (I'm guessing) when she got it.

Before I met her I never really thought much about transplant patients- or what they endured as a result of a transplant. She never went into details- but even the most basic things such as taking non-rejection medicines, frequent testing to be sure everything is alright- constant fear that her body may reject this other person's organ at any moment- and there's nothing to be done about it.

She said in her letter than she would not be seeking, nor accept another transplant. I know she had misgivings about it the first time, but she probably had some amount of pressure to get it done. Who wouldn't pressure a loved one to live longer?

She said there's no way to know how the liver deterioration will proceed. It could be weeks, months or years. How amazing and frightening to live with that knowledge- weeks, months or years. It's is so for all of us- but we pretend it's not.

Yesterday I found out that someone I know- my age, some years younger has been diagnosed with MS- not as life threatening, but certainly life altering.

What a life we walk through- as though everything will always remain the same.