I received word tonight that a high school classmate of mine died today. He was two months older than me, lean, physically fit. He owned a restaurant that he opened up a couple of years ago which is doing rather well. His father is our recently retired county property assessor and his brother is a prominent local attorney.
So, what killed him you ask? Liver failure followed by kidney failure due to the elevated levels in the blood caused by the liver failure. His lungs were also failing and his blood pressure kept dropping.
His death was not immediate. He collapsed at his parents' house on the 10th of November, and died today, the 15th. He was in ICU in a coma the entire time, but was responsive when spoken to or touched... meaning his body had him held captive and his mind was awake and aware. He died slowly due to his body shutting down, but was aware through almost all of it... up until they dosed him up with morphine at the end to ease his pain.
So, why am I sharing all of this? Simple... because of this thread. You see, Gregg's liver died because he was an alcoholic. No, he wasn't one like Otis on The Andy Griffith Show; Gregg was a fully functional individual who drank... a lot... all the time. He never got sloppy drunk, or staggered around, but he did keep some kind of drink either in his hand or at his elbow and had ever since he graduated school. Even if Gregg had made it he would have needed a liver transplant. But, since the damage came from drinking, it would have been a year before they would have put his name on the list... and you can't live a year without a liver.
43 is too young to die like this. 103 is too young to die like this. No one should ever die in this manner. While I will not try to tell everyone here that drinking will automatically kill you, I do want everyone here to know about this and to think about it. I don't want to have to hear about someone else I know, either personally or here on TF, going out in the same manner.
I'm done with my spiel. No one else here knew Gregg so no one else will miss him. But I do hope that he did not die in vain; if this causes any of you to think about him whenever you go to drink then it will have not happened for naught.
So, what killed him you ask? Liver failure followed by kidney failure due to the elevated levels in the blood caused by the liver failure. His lungs were also failing and his blood pressure kept dropping.
His death was not immediate. He collapsed at his parents' house on the 10th of November, and died today, the 15th. He was in ICU in a coma the entire time, but was responsive when spoken to or touched... meaning his body had him held captive and his mind was awake and aware. He died slowly due to his body shutting down, but was aware through almost all of it... up until they dosed him up with morphine at the end to ease his pain.
So, why am I sharing all of this? Simple... because of this thread. You see, Gregg's liver died because he was an alcoholic. No, he wasn't one like Otis on The Andy Griffith Show; Gregg was a fully functional individual who drank... a lot... all the time. He never got sloppy drunk, or staggered around, but he did keep some kind of drink either in his hand or at his elbow and had ever since he graduated school. Even if Gregg had made it he would have needed a liver transplant. But, since the damage came from drinking, it would have been a year before they would have put his name on the list... and you can't live a year without a liver.
43 is too young to die like this. 103 is too young to die like this. No one should ever die in this manner. While I will not try to tell everyone here that drinking will automatically kill you, I do want everyone here to know about this and to think about it. I don't want to have to hear about someone else I know, either personally or here on TF, going out in the same manner.
I'm done with my spiel. No one else here knew Gregg so no one else will miss him. But I do hope that he did not die in vain; if this causes any of you to think about him whenever you go to drink then it will have not happened for naught.
