This is difficult to write and mostly I rather not but here it goes. I'm not sure when this next surgery will be but by this weekend seems likely. Part of the new liver needs to be removed. This is ok long term because livers have this miraculous ability to grow to the right size, but there is risk short term for surviving the operation after just having had one and not yet recovered, and maybe even holding on until then (his new liver is currently not functioning properly and won't until they fix it). I don't know what the survival rate is in this type of situation. From what little he's been able to say to me it seems like he's fighting for his life. Basically he is in so much pain over these days that it's like being constantly tortured, literally. There was so much I wanted to say to him and I got most of it out but he had to get off the phone quickly because hearing my voice was like turning up the dial on the torture he feels. Just any noise or sensory stimulation or even thinking right now increases the pain. He was barely able to talk and his voice sounded so different, you could hear the effort behind every syllable.
I was trying to tell him important reasons he has to live and get through this no matter how much it hurts, and how it will all be worth it, all the pain which is overwhelming now will have been worth it a billion times over once you get to start your new life and experience what it has for you and give the amazing things you have in you to give. My hope/intent was and is to give him a boost to his will to live, because that makes a huge difference in these situations. I'm not sure if I was able to do that, though. Because everything I said hurt him more.
One thing I told him is that I can bear to lose a precious friend but I can't bear to lose a precious comrade. Losing such a special friend is a personal loss and would hurt me and make me unhappy. Losing such a special comrade would not just be my loss, it would be a loss to the world. I can bear to be hurt, to be unhappy. But I can't bear for the world to lose someone who can help push things along to one where we can all be happy.
I expect that will sound very foolish to many people but I stand by it. I know nothing changes without a mass movement. But I also know the emergency of the world is too huge, too horrendous, for any of us to undervalue our own potential contribution.
Get well soon Sir! ^^