Let's Have Some Respect

After living with liver disease I have gained a great deal of respect for the liver. The liver is the largest internal organ in the body. When the liver is diseased, all sorts of things go wrong. Dr. Hutson told me the liver performs 242 functions. Among them are regulating our body temperature, leveling our nutrients throughout the day (even though we only eat three times), building muscle mass, building bone mass, making blood (by supporting our bone marrow), giving blood the ability to clot, turning our food into chemicals the body can use, metabolizing most of our medications, and eliminating toxins in our body. When the liver struggles it causes the skin to itch because the toxins go to the skin to be filtered. The toxins also cause our brain to function with less clarity (I know what you are all thinking). Bottom line is our liver is our chemical factory. In spite of what we put in our bodies, the liver tries to make everything right. With liver disease, our appetite decreases. And most important for me, liver disease causes our energy levels to decrease significantly.

Our liver can repair and regenerate itself, the only organ to do so. In fact, our liver can keep our body functioning with only 20% of the liver functioning. The liver has so many functions that there is no machine to replicate what it does like the heart pump or the kidney dialysis machine. If a liver transplant doesn't work, they call the mortician.

So, here is my question. Why do we not respect the liver more? Think about it. We say things like, "He has a big heart", which means he is kind or generous. Or we might say, "She is kind-hearted", or "She has the heart of a lion". We even use a symbol of the heart to represent love. The same for the brain. If someone is sharp or brainy it is a compliment to their ability to think which is a compliment to the brain. A "brain drain" is not something you want to have happen to your company. It means all the smart peope are leaving. We have so much respect for the stomach that we definitely don't want to upset it by having butterflies in there or by tying it up in knots. Even something as annoying as a crying baby comes off with a compliment for the lungs when people say, "he sure has a good set of lungs". But what do we call someone who is a coward - yellow liver or chicken liver. People even imply that they are nothing when they say, "What do you think I am, chopped liver?" No, really, can you think of any saying that has a positive connotation for the liver?

When someone in the Olympics has a great performance people don't say they sure performed with a lot of liver. No, they say they performed with a lot of heart. I know that during the performance the heart pumped the blood and all. But come on, that athletic body was mostly made over a number of years by the liver. The liver built the muscles and the bones. Plus, at the time of need, the liver also supplied the energy and the chemicals the body needed during the performance.

Please, let's change our collective attitude.