Care Partner
Transplant Humour
I've come to learn there is a sense of humour transplant patients share that might not be as well received among the general population (and I'm not just talking about dark humour!)
I was at an event recently for transplant recipients, and a fellow liver transplant recipient was there who had recently gotten married. I asked him about his relationship, as one does, and he made a joke about using his anti rejection meds to keep him in the right and his new wife being annoyed by it. (If you've heard the line 'you can't say no to me, I'm on anti rejection meds' you're going to get the joke real fast)
I laughed, because I've used this same line in my own relationship a time or two, and assured him I was still happily married.
It seems like a fun little joke, until we realized someone overheard our conversation who wasn't 'in the know' and came over to tell us how horrible it was that his wife would be offended by his need for anti rejection meds after transplant, and that his doctor needed to explain to his wife that these meds were so important and your spouse shouldn't stand between you and medical care.
Both this fellow transplant recipient and I chuckled, and assured this passerby that neither of us were going to stop taking our meds, and that we were 100% pulling the sass card with our spouses to get our way.
I'm not sure which was funnier: the initial joke (and our spouses being saints for putting up with us!) or the fact that I realized I now speak a hidden language of transplant patients.
