Hey there, Chris. It’s your liver here. I’m going to have to take today off. As I’m sure you can understand, this weekend was a wee bit much. I’m glad you had fun at Randall’s bachelor party, but Myrtle Beach isn’t exactly a vacation destination for a liver. My idea of relaxing doesn’t contain so much tequila and bargain-priced fried seafood. I’m absolutely exhausted – physically, mentally, and metabolically.
I know we’ve got a ton of big projects ahead of us, so I wanted to give you a heads up. I wish I could muster the strength to come in and be a part of the team and help out with glucose transportation and protein production, but the sheer amount of Bacardi Razz I filtered out of your bloodstream this weekend has left me weakened and sick. Look, I’m just a dual-lobed organ made of fatty tissue, not a superhero. And this dual-lobed organ still smells like the dance floor of The Spanish Galleon.
I realize that without my hepatocytes producing bile, you’re not going to be able to digest any food while I’m out. Yeah, that’s a pretty crummy situation, but so was spending the 48 consecutive hours breaking down alcohol and cocaine into inactive metabolites to keep your hormone levels within healthy homeostatic limits. If any organ has ever earned a day off, it’s one that was working overtime while you got booed off stage at a karaoke bar that still allows smoking inside.
I understand this isn’t convenient for the team or for the six essential bodily functions to which I am crucial. I’d love to be there helping you out. I wish I had fully functioning Kupffer cells to work with the spleen and lymph nodes in order to regulate your immune system. I wish I could be there to absorb your digested triglycerides for the storage of vitamins and minerals. But I simply can’t do it. I’m not in my 20s anymore. And no offense, but neither are you.
The thought of processing even a single glucose molecule makes me sick to my stomach – which, as you very well know, is also your stomach. My right hepatic duct has been really dry and itchy and my portal veins have been throbbing. I think my entire right lobe has a migraine, which I didn’t know livers could even get.
If I felt a little better, I’d soldier through and come in to work, but l am – quite literally – drained. I haven’t seen a single drop of bile seep through the sphincter of my bile duct. If I’m being honest, can’t you just get the appendix to cover for me? I mean, what does that guy even do?
I’m not positive if this is just your run-of-the-mill post-bachelor party exhaustion or full-blown cirrhosis, but I definitely think a day or two of rest will do me a lot of good. I’ll probably just veg out in your body cavity, binge watch the adrenal glands producing cortisol, and let my sinusoid pathways clear themselves up. I definitely can feel a protein buildup in my cystic duct and fluid collecting around my coronary ligament, so if you could drink something with plenty of electrolytes, that would be a big help. Again, my ducts are super itchy.
Thanks in advance for your understanding. I love working for this body and never want to let you or anyone down, especially the heart. He pumps, I purify. That’s the way we’ve done it for decades. But the worst thing that could happen is I work myself into complete failure. In that instance, I don’t think the other organs could continue doing their job. While I’m out, please send any questions, concerns, or work orders to the kidneys. You’ve got two of them.
Septically,
Your Liver
