Desperately Seeking Answer for This Question

Hello and thank you for taking the time to read my question and for helping me out.

My Sister has told us that she has cirrosis (cirrhosis)  (can't spell it but you get the idea) of the liver. She's not a drinker or anything which at first baffled me because the disease is always attached to drinking, so I looked up the disease and understand how it works for those who don't drink.

However now she tells us that he doctor said that her liver is "dead", is that possible? To survive when your liver is dead?

I hope I don't come off as sarcastic because I'm not trying to. I love my sister and I really want to know what is happening to her. However my sister has had a terrible habit of making up illness's for dramatic purposes all her life and I think this time (at least the cirossis  part, I think, is for real, but I'm stumped on the liver being dead thing?  And because she is so hard to read when it comes to her telling the truth, I need some outside help on this question.

She won't give me her doctors name so I'm at a loss for getting any information from anyone that really knows whats going on with her, even her husband is very enabling and will not tell me anything unless he gets her ok to do so. I just lost both my parents last year, so I really hoping she's once again making this up (I can deal with the mental illness part of her) I don't think I can deal with losing another family member.

So you can see where I'm a bit against the wall,  I'm really kind of leaning on the answers I might get from you folks,  so again thank you for listening and if you know of any documentation that I can find that talks about this subject (surviving with a dead liver) I'd appreciate your leaving that information with me.

God bless you all.
Ray.

[CalGal]

I'm by no means an expert on the liver, but I can tell you that if her liver was 'dead' she wouldn't be walking around - period. She'd be matching the state of her liver. EVERYTHING is processed through the liver via the blood, so if it doesn't work, the body doesn't work.

That particular liver problem is typically a slowly progressive one, and it's one in which there are a number of fairly obvious symptoms/problems that crop up as the hardening and fibrosis gets worse and worse. Fatigue can be a biggie. Appetite declines, skin changes become apparent and a variety of others 'outward' signs show up long before the liver actually gets to the 'dead' stage. And as the hardening of the liver progressed, you'd probably find she'd end up spending most of her time in bed, her abdomen would probably be swelling, there would be increasing problems with other organs of the body until most body processes including her mind would be affected.

Most docs - if the liver were severely impaired - would probably suggest (if the person had no other contraindications) that the patient be placed on the organ donor (in this case liver) recipient list.

Trying to talk to her doc won't do you any good. Unless you sister authorizes it, I do not believe that a doctor is able to, or would, give anyone any information on a patient. It violates patient/doctor confidentiality. It's possible a doc could get sued for that.

Early changes with the liver could bring jaundice with it. Do you see changes in the color of her skin or of her eyes? Is she itching? Are the palms of her hands red and itchy?

Hopefully, others on the board will have more information for you.