Sometimes exactly what you need shows up exactly when you need it.

An excerpt from Choose Your Scar, Grow From There: A Memoir

I don’t have much time left to live, if you want to call my existence living. Months spent on two waiting lists. Two false alarms. One liver wasn’t viable and I don’t remember the reason for the second rejection. I do remember filling the floor of my side of the car with wadded up tissues during the five hour ride back home.

Frequent visits to the clinic are mandatory to determine rank on the waiting list based on many factors like lab results from blood work. Every trip sucks life from my unsteady body.

I am ready to stop it all. The endless needle pokes and blood transfusions. The unpacking and repacking of my Go-Bag because my body changes from size 8 to 14 at whim. I count ceiling tiles in hospital rooms from another hard, plastic covered mattress, while I shiver dressed in a thin backless gown. It’s a constant struggle to be warm.

In the restroom at the clinic I stare in the mirror. Someone told me the other day that I look almost tan in an effort to help me feel better about my jaundiced skin, I suppose. I see wisps of hair combed over balding patches on my dry scalp through eyes now bloodshot and yellow. With tears trailing down my cheeks, I say out loud, “This must be how it ends for me…