We are all worth it (and you especially Cap'n @REP22).
One thing that might work is to imagine a scene where you are in a hospital waiting room. Some other patients are in wheelchairs on drips, some are yellow and others are hallucinating. At least one is visibly drunk. You see some of the nurses looking a bit scornful, although most are either kind or briskly efficient. It takes a while for your name to be called, and whilst you wait you can feel your blood running colder. You hope you don't see anyone you know, or worse, that they will see you.
You haven't had the results of the ultrasound you had done a month ago, and you have an appointment for an endoscopy in six weeks, which you are dreading, as some of the doctors don't give enough sedation (it's The Cuts, apparently). When you finally get to see a liver nurse (you stopped seeing a consultant years ago) she reads through your notes and asks how you are. Obviously you don't know, as there have been no results, and nobody's ever told you just how bad things are anyway, or what 'better' should feel like, so you mutter that you feel fine. She jots something down and asks you to give some blood on the way out, for LFTs. You know you won't get the results of those either, or not until a letter goes to your GP and you can see it on the NHS app, and even then you don't get them all - just any that are out of range.
That's your appointment until next year. Or more probably for 18 months. This has been going on for nearly nine years. A couple of years ago you pushed for a fibroscan which said you didn't have cirrhosis at all. You have (quite serious) fibrosis. The liver nurse says it's the same thing, though, and that your diagnosis can't be altered, even though it was based on an ultrasound and the opinion of a doctor. This is not the case according to the British Liver Foundation, so you suppose you could push a bit. But on the upside, if you stay on the list you do get regular US scans and blood tests, so if cancer develops it might be caught fairly early. On the downside it means that you can't get insurance to go on holiday unless you pay ££££, and as you haven't told anyone about your condition you can't explain why you keep refusing to go abroad, and your friends have stopped asking you. Also, you are fed up with having to tell everyone from the dentist to the pilates instructor that you have cirrhosis, as they all have those bloody forms to fill in before you can get any sort of treatment.
After being told that your old diagnosis stands you stupidly thought you'd have an occasional drink, which started to nudge towards your old ways, and the last US back in November showed 'a tiny amount' of fluid around your liver. That was the last you heard - just a line in a letter, with no phone call, follow up or anything at all. You've had a blood test since then, but you don't know what it showed. You are very scared that you have pushed yourself into 'no going back' territory, but nobody medical seems to care. They are probably patient-weary, and you don't blame them, really.
The merrygoround of tests, 'consultations' and so on takes chunks out of your life, as the hospital is miles away, and they never co-ordinate things so you can get everything done in a day. They don't even synchronise the tests so the nurse has the results when you see her, which is one reason why the appointments are so unsatisfactory. But you assume it will go on for the rest of your life, however long that is, which of course you don't know either. At no point has anyone told you how to improve things. Luckily you are capable of doing your own research, but still. The nurse is always surprised when you know fairly basic terminology and that you keep a record of the LFTs you get for a totally different condition and are shared with you. She says that most people just shrug when she tells them anything, and carry on regardless. It's a different one every time, so you don't see the point in trying to overcome the obvious prejudice and forging an ongoing relationship, but you wonder what the appointments actually achieve.
The odd thing is that you feel fine. Much better than when this all started. You look normal too, or as normal as you ever have. You're glad of this of course, but sometimes wonder if it was worth putting it all in motion.
Still imagining this scene? I'm told it's very real for a lot of people, including someone who never thought it would happen to her, and that tomorrow would always be a good time to stop drinking. The only way to avoid that waiting room is to stop drinking. Now.