Long Live the Liver!

“Who cares what your liver looks like, if you have all your teeth” 

says one of the main characters towards the end of the novel I have just finished reading. It is called, “A Long Petal of the Sea” by Isabel Allende, a lyrical sweeping story carrying the reader through a huge slice of twentieth century history from the Spanish Civil War to General Pinochet’s Chile. Well worth the read. 

The character, Victor Dalmau, toward the end of his life, was musing over his failing health and the ageing process in general. So his comment made me think about the connection between inner health and outward appearance - how I am and how I feel. For a lot of the time along this journey with cancer, I have felt, well, pretty normal. Sometimes a bit weak, but in general, I feel good. I certainly don’t feel like s seriously ill person.Yet, the internal examinations tell a different story. This latest struggle to get my liver back to a normal way of functioning is a case in point. Every day the tablets. Every week a liver function blood test. Then every Friday a call from the cancer team in Belfast to discuss the result. This last Friday I got my best answer yet. Your liver is back to normal! You can reduce the dosage now gradually down to zero, and then we will discuss the next steps. Great news!

Now the liver is a pretty formless sort of an object. Laid out on the slab on the butcher's counter it is hardly the most attractive cut of meat on display. Yet, apparently the functions it performs within my body are endless. It processes the nutrients that I eat, removes toxins from the bloodstream, breaks down proteins, monitors the sugar content and supports my immune system. Where would I be without my ugly old liver?  

Bill Bryson says of the liver “It is the most multifariously busy organ in the body, with functions so vital that if it shuts down you will be dead within hours … It is essentially the body’s laboratory.”

So, I guess I should care about how my liver looks, more than the state of my teeth. But here’s the point, and it's a point that Paul makes also when he’s writing to Timothy *. It’s often the quiet work going on in hidden places by ordinary people, that is not for show and does not hit the main stage, that keeps things going in life and adds health and vigour to society. Those quiet acts of kindness and compassion, that purify our world.

* 2 Timothy 2:20