Back in 2011, I said this blog would reflect my transplant journey and would be honest. I like to try to keep things positive but …

I am sick again. No, not liver stuff. It’s just regular stuff. I’ve been sick so often this winter that it has me fatigued.

Yeah, I’m discouraged. I think I may be bordering on outright depression. I get windows of 4 or 5 days and then “whack!” sick again.

I caught Influenza A. I guess the good side is that I never was hospitalized. But, it wrecked me for about two weeks.

I got a almost 10 days of health and got to go to Israel for the trip of a lifetime. That was awesome. But, I travelled home in a metal tube where everyone around me was coughing and hacking. Robin and I knew the odds were not in my favor.

By the weekend I was in Urgent Care diagnosed with Influenza B, double ear infection and sinus infection.

We just had an awesome weekend with our Guatemala team. I led a bunch of training sessions Friday and Saturday and came home with a pounding headache and what felt like food poisoning.

I was up all night, in and out of the bathroom. It was no better this morning when I headed to church to deliver the next message in my series. God gave me the adrenaline I needed but I came home, climbed into bed shivering with the mattress heater on 8/10.

It feels like flu but aren’t we out of flu options? Can’t I just be done with flu? I read that HIV patients and transplant recipients can get the flu multiple times. Seriously??? That better be wrong.

I’m glad to be alive but I am tired of having to suppress my immune system. I’m so tired of being sick.

Maybe this is the last time? Maybe Spring and fresh air is coming. Lord, I hope so!

In addition to the discouragement and fatigue, I find myself becoming fearful of being with people. I want to visit my dad in the Veterans’ Home but I don’t want to get sick. I want to stop by and see my mom but then she goes into a coughing fit when we talk on the phone.

I even find myself avoiding my grandchildren. Yes, much of that has been my attempt to not share my particular illness of the day but, sometimes, I just don’t want to catch something else.

I’m excited to go to church but I dread it too. I know that Monday, my day off, will usually be spent sick after being with 100 or so of my faith family sharing more than worship.

I thought maybe we should move someplace better for me. Then, I pulled up the influenza map and discovered that America is pretty much all covered in poopy, brown. So, I’d be sick wherever we were. Worldwide, Australia and Buenos Aires look good

Widespread, inescapable grossness.

Before transplant we were told that I would need to spend the rest of my life of drugs to suppress my immune system after transplant. I don’t think I had any idea how much crud was floating around that healthy immune systems reject.

So, here I am, just being honest, whining a bit and telling you the level of my discouragement discouragement. No, I can’t take your immune system booster. A boosted immune system will recognize that my liver is not my own and will attack it. Yeah, flu, tissues, vaporizers and Immodium are exhausting but life with no liver is impossible.

What’s the solution? I sanitize everything and have a bottle of super-duper germ killer in every jacket pocket. I wipe down doorknobs and spray everything at church with Lysol. I’ve even taken to wearing a mask more often.

I don’t know. Nothing seems to help.

Man, I’m so tired of this … here on the couch since 4:30 AM with my stomach complaining and my head in a fog.

I just wish there was an escape!