Games Hepatologists Play

Some people think that the medical system is just one big game. However, having worked in healthcare, I can tell you all about games hepatologists play:

Can you Scrabble players spot the cheater? Scrabble cheaters never prosper…

50 Shades of Jaundice

This year, my book Free from Hepatitis C was released. It has been doing well, but I think it would have done better if it had a catchier title. Here are some I wish I had thought of:

• 50 Shades of Jaundice
• The Joy of Sex before a Liver Transplant
• When You Are Expecting a Liver
• The Great Gall Bladder
• Moby Bile
• Brave New Liver
• The Gall of the Wild
• The Adventures of Hepatic Finn
• For Whom the Gall Tolls

Happy Liver Day

For a few years, I have been hoping that Liver Day would catch on. Labor Day sounds so arduous, hardly a day of rest and relaxation. Perhaps Liver Day doesn’t sound like much of an improvement, but imagine a day set aside to honor the liver. We can all wear yellow, which is very happy, sunny color. We can still spend the day with family members – it gives a completely new meaning to the concept of regeneration—instead of our liver regenerating (which it does on its own), we can spend time with the older and younger generations. We can serve hamburgers shaped like livers (sorry, but if liver and onions are served it will cause more regurgitation than regeneration). No alcohol of course. Perhaps lemonade or ginger ale since they are yellow. Any other ideas?

Old Man Liver

Last week I completely discredited myself with a tasteless rendition of Porky and Bile, so since I seem to be on a roll, I thought I’d take one of my favorite show tunes, and completely destroy it and any shred of credibility I have with the the hepatitis C community.

Old Man Liver (apologies to Oscar Hammerstein)

Old man liver,
That old man liver,
He must know something,
But don't say nothing,
He just keeps growing
He keeps on growing again.

He makes that bile,
He makes those hormones,
And when he’s tired
and soon forgotten,
That old man liver,
He just  keeps growing again.

Big old liver keeps fighting that booze.
He stores, he sweats, he strains,
Body all aching, and racked with pain.
Make that bile

Tote that hep C
Don’t get drunk
or you land in hospice

Old man liver,
That old man liver,
He must know something,
But don't say nothing,
He just keeps growing
He keeps on growing again.

I am just glad that Paul Robeson can’t read this from the grave…

Porky and Bile

Apologies to George Gershwin, but it is hot here and I just never know what will appear in the Hepatitis Comics.This is sung to the tune of Summertime from Porgy and Bess:

Summertime,

And the liver is easy,

ALT is jumpin’

And bilirubin is high…

Your doctor’s rich

And your nurse is good lookin’

So hush little tummy,

Don’t you cry.

Do you think this will win a Tony?

Liver Olympics

With the recent London Olympics and World Hepatitis Day, it is time for the 2012 International O’liveric games. Instead of Olympic rings, the logo is five interlocking livers. Here are the events:

• Darts: Limited to patients on hepatitis C treatment, participants compete to see who is the fasted self-injector in the world.
• Liver throwing – Competition to see who can throw a post-transplanted cirrhotic liver the farthest.
• Marathon: Another event for patients on hepatitis C treatment, participants compete to see who is on treatment the longest. 
• 100 centimeter race – This race is so short, even a person with liver failure can enter.
• Synchronized Sleeping – Anyone want to join my team?

Even the Rocks…

I wonder if I am a bit obsessed with the liver. Just this week, I saw a rock that looked like a liver. Perhaps I do have rocks in my head. I guess that beats gallstones.