My husband Garry fought the good battle against cirrhosis from HCV. He died of renal failure after being in and out of the hospital with peritonitis, etc. He put off moving to a city where we could get him on a transplant list, he was so very sick.

He died at 37 years old.

His system couldn't handle anything anymore, he had taken his dose of morphine and fell into a coma, and never awoke. I believe, along with his family doc, that his body just couldn't process anything, and the morphine in a sense "overdosed" him. They put a pacemaker in him at the hospital, and I was left with the decision of "pulling the plug."

This was the hardest thing I've ever done. I loved him so very much, but he was very specific about being kept alive by machines. I climbed into the bed with him and laid with him for about an hour, listening to his heart beat and smelling his wonderful self. My family swears that he lifted his hand and put it on my back to comfort me, of course the dicktors said it was reflex...Then I had the machines turned off. He died almost immediately thereafter with no fuss.

My husband laughed until the day he died. He found happiness in little things. He loved me so much, a day didn't go by that he didn't give me a card, letter, silly stuffed critter, showing me his love. And I in return made sure that he didn't die alone. I have his ashes here still in my home, I've got to eventually make a decision of what to do with him, but I haven't brought myself to part with them yet.

I could torture myself with the "whatifs", like what if I had MADE him get to a transplant center. (His local HepDick wouldn't refer him for a transplant due to past drug and alcohol abuse, even though he'd been clean for a long time). But Garry was the smartest person I ever knew, and he knew what he was doing.

I have gotten past my guilt and just remember how WELL LOVED I was by him, and how loved he was by me. I am also grateful that he didn't know that I have the HCV, that would have devastated him. I was diagnosed with it a month after he died.

A kind of funny story, when he was in his coma, we had one friend speaking in tongues over him from the Evangelical Church, and another friend holding crystals and chanting and moving them over his torso on the other side of him. It was quite a sight, the ICU was so cool, they didn't limit our visitors, they knew he wasn't going to come back to us, and let everyone of his friends and family say goodbye.

Silly hugs and big grins,

Julie