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Warning: This dispatch may be too weird for normal human beings. Permission is granted to exit outta here immediately and come back tomorrow. And we missed church today, a day when I probably needed it most.

4 a.m. this morning and it was another liver. Friends, I now think I am channeling another liver. Not Bob's this time. Let's just call him, say, Louie. I got up and started reading his caring bridge site. And I got sick and couldn't even finish it until this morning. Maybe it was the heat in our apartment. The ammonia build up on the brain. The corpse. The MELD score, which we didn't even get to. But here's the weird part. I've been thinking that I want to figure out Bob's MELD score. What it was last December. That's how they rank transplant recipients, based on a whole bunch of tests and vital signs, I suppose. Too many bad livers and not enough good liver donors make MELD scores super important. Competitive. Life giving or not.

So, let's say Bob's liver decided not to regenerate. I always wonder where he would have been ranked on the MELD score. High, low, long wait, short wait. Where would we have been? To console myself I have always believed that he would've ranked high and would've been granted a new liver immediately. But you know, people do die waiting for new organs. It doesn't always work out.

And why is this important to me? I don't know, but I think somehow Louie's new liver is bringing some resolution to that. Like, Bob's liver gave us a great big tease and won out in the end, still having some kind of hold over me at least. Louie beat his liver.

I just want Bob's liver to know that we *were* willing to give it up. We were not going to just let it run all over us forever. It can't rule us.

Don't get me wrong. An original liver is always the best. Of course. Of course. We give thanks all the time that Bob's liver regenerated. And we pray for Louie's new liver. This is just a weird psychological battle of the organic bile binders. Me vs. Bob's Liver, which was my commander in chief for six months. How can a liver be so powerful? And did I really have to submit? I'm just still processing.

Louie's new liver is from a 35 year old in Washington. I wonder about that person too. And that person's family. What a fantastic liver. A nice one. Beautiful. Cooperative.

There's also something about the idea of transplant. The miracle of it all. Almost like a repentance of the body. A new chance. Our new pastor talked about a version of demon possession that could be something like the evil that comes from systems that oppress people. Apartheid. The Nazis. (Those are the easy ones because we mostly agree on them.) He talked about a particularly violent Apartheid leader who eventually converted. He repented. Pastor Ron suggested that this is another way to think about casting out demons. The lesson that day told the story of when Jesus put all the demons from this guy into a heard of pigs which then run over a cliff. It didn't mention what the pig farmer did with all his capital lost, which is what I was wondering.

I want Bob's liver to repent for what it did to us. Although the demons are caste out, it was by force not repentance.

And now that I have revealed my true inner fruitcake, I am going to figure out a way to get a hold of the lessons for today. Channel all this spirit into something holy. Thanks everyone for coming over. I really appreciate it. Thanks for your love and support.

With love, T