Dear Liver
I am writing to you, as I have been thinking a lot about you lately.
I reflect back and realize that since my 4th week of gestation, when I was just a 2.5mm embryo, you began to form inside me. Well, this "memory" is a figure of speech; I know this because I learned it in my embryology class and just recently went over it.
The truth is that, like most people, in our daily comings and goings, we forget how important you are and how grateful we should be for your magnificent function. And it’s true, compared to your sibling organs, the heart and brain, you might not seem so important. But how false this is! In fact, you are the oldest sibling in size. In my body, you weigh 1 kilogram and 100 grams; but in larger people, you can reach up to 1,500 grams, while the brain weighs between 1,000 and 1,200 grams and the heart weighs between 280 and 340 grams. In reality, you are the largest organ in the human body. And your 20 to 25 cm in length are nothing to be underestimated.
If we were all aware of all the functions you perform, such as: bile formation and excretion, carbohydrate metabolism, fat metabolism, protein metabolism, blood coagulation, vitamin metabolism, detoxification, phagocytosis, and immunity, we would certainly value and take better care of you. But you are so noble that, despite the mistreatment, you endure a lot. Starting with the fact that most of us don't take care of our diet, and there are those who turn alcohol consumption into almost a sport, competing to see who can handle more, unaware of how much damage they are causing you.
For example, those who drink pulque even smile when they say that pulque is just one degree away from being meat; how little they know, my dear fellow beings.
And as I tell you this, I remember now, especially since it’s more recent and it really shook me. It was a patient with liver cirrhosis who passed away in the Emergency Department of my beloved Hospital Juárez, where I trained as an Internal Medicine resident. I tell you it shook me because he arrived with a gastrointestinal bleed that was impossible to stop. I still remember the tray full of blood. Ah! But that wasn't all—on top of this, my resident at the time asked me to give the tragic news to the family (it was the first death notice I had to deliver as an Internal Medicine resident), and although I tried to do it in the best possible way, it was awful. I had to hold myself back because I almost started crying with the family.
My relationship with you in my medical practice has continued. I also remember the death of a 14-year-old boy who died from fulminant hepatitis. Even today, with time, I still question how an A hepatitis turned into fulminant hepatitis, and I wonder: could he have had pathogenic intestinal flora? Did he consume medications in extremely high doses that led to this condition? The answer to such cases has still not been fully clarified. I also remember a male patient, about 70 years old, who came to the consultation one day, and when I palpated his abdomen, I found it enlarged beneath his right costal area by several centimeters. I asked him if he hadn’t noticed, and he said no. Today, I still don’t understand why people don’t check themselves; they could avoid so many complications. After performing tests on the referred gentleman, advanced cancer was detected in you.
And of course, all human beings remember you when you get sick. But what’s truly important is that we should take better care of you before that, that we should learn how to cleanse you. And you won’t believe it, but I only recently learned how to do that. You should know that they don’t teach us this in medical school.
ortunately, I’ve made it a point to keep learning, not only what conventional medicine teaches but also paying attention to new research that, unfortunately, doesn’t come to light because sometimes it challenges the economic interests of the pharmaceutical or food industries. I’ve also gone back to paying attention to what our ancestors did to keep you and our body healthy, practices that have unfortunately been forgotten.
Well, today I can proudly tell you that I am taking care of you, that I am cleansing you, and that I will do everything possible to keep you healthy. And not only that, I promise that what I have learned, I will put at the service of my fellow human beings so that you can continue working well in them as well.
Thank you for being who you are, for accompanying me, and for serving all human beings. Thank you, dear LIVER.
Yours, your friend and loyal admirer.Dr. Lilia Piliado Yáñez.
