Bye Bye Spleen

What is a spleens job? A spleen has many jobs but 2 major ones that have a direct reflection in my situation are that it stores blood and helps fight off infections. Due to my liver disease, my spleen has to work a lot harder than the average human beings. My body does not produce enough white blood cells and platelets. For example an average persons levels for white blood cells read (3.6 k/cumm-10.6 k/cumm) and for platelets read. (150 k/cumm-450 k/cumm). My levels are as follows; WBC (3.3 k/cumm) and platelets (55 k/cumm). Mine are obviously below average as one could tell therefore my body works a little harder to keep up. Due to the fact that my liver doesn’t function properly it causes me to have an enlarged spleen. I get a read on my spleen and liver stiffness about every other year. The machine/reader is called a fibroscan, very similar to an ultrasound but it makes a knock on the outside of your body sending waves through your body to help read your organ stiffness. The spleen stiffness shows things like portal hypertension and the liver stiffness shows cirrhosis. Now mind you this isn’t visual pictures but measurements of how stiff the organs are based on the waves. A normal person measurement is (18.4) where as mine read is at an (84), they like to keep me below (50). That being said they are most likely going to also remove my spleen when I get my liver transplant (they told me there is a 99% chance they’re removing it). My spleen is no longer functioning as a benefit to my body. Therefore I require vaccinations before they remove my spleen because it helps fight off infections, and once I get my transplant I’m highly susceptible to getting sick. This is all about preparing my body for what’s to come. I was supposed to have an appointment with an infectious disease specialist in Indy on July 17th, instead I will be meeting with his nurse. The doctor called me yesterday to explain that there is an issue with his schedule and explained that I can just meet with his nurse. Now he is not just passing me off to someone else rather just explaining that what I’m needing is not required for me to meet with him specifically. His nurse is highly capable of giving me some vaccines. As for getting rid of another body part, Queen says it best “another one bites the dust”!