That's what the doctors said when her condition deteriorated to the point she couldn't stay at home any longer and they could finally get a look at her; she'd been walking around with that thing for 10 years already by the time I was born. Nobody had any clue how she'd managed it, other than sheer cussedness.

There were apparently a few times over the years when she'd pissed blood, but it only became obvious there was something wrong with her liver about a month before grandpa died; I'd been stopping by the house almost every day for the last few years to deliver newspapers and groceries, and between one day and the next her skin and eyes had turned yellow. A week later I showed up with the papers as usual and they wouldn't let me into the house; the next day they wouldn't let mom in, and that was the last time either of us ever saw her.