I'm sorry, what?

I'm now an expert at Kaiser labs...I know what they want me to do/say every time and in fact I can usually tell them which labs they should be drawing for, and even which colored vials they should go in. It's kind of sick. Good thing I'm not squeamish around needles! Thanks to my prior donations with Blood Source and all my visits to Kaiser I now have holes in my arm and a lot of scar tissue-This can make a blood draw a littler trickier, but I generally have decent luck. Speaking of Blood Source, I had to call them to be taken of the donation list as well as the bone marrow registry. At least I tried to be a good person-My liver however had other plans.



So during the 6months after my biopsy I spent a lot of time getting blood drawn...and that was it....and I mean it. My primary care doctor was awesome and checked in every week-She was like a cheerleader for me every time my LFT's went down, and a sympathetic ear if they went up-even be it slightly. Unfortunately for me, she wasn't my treating GI doc. You remember her? With the awesome credentials-Well, she didn't excel in bedside manner. I emailed her a few times when my numbers which had pretty much been on a steady decline, would have little fluctuations up-They were minor, I understood that but I couldn't understand how if you take the toxins out-Alcohol, medicines, vitamins etc. then why would my LFT's increase at all? The response I got from the GI doc was "You need to not worry so much." Gee, thanks-that's sound advice from someone who's taken all of the above out of my life as well as told me to put babies, the one thing I want most right now on hold. My primary care doctor was kind enough to tell me that LFT's can fluctuate day to day anyway, and there can be differences in the actual labs as well. It made me feel better to know that, but made me question my care under that GI.

Here's where things got really crazy...

In May-6months after my hospital stay I asked for my next MRI to check the adenoma. It was scheduled on Friday May 27th. On Wednesday of that week I emailed my GI because my lab work from that week had taken a pretty sharp increase compared to where it had been-Enough for me to need some answers from the doc. Kaiser docs have 48 hours to respond to emails-I waited the appropriate time, but finally felt frustrated enough that I asked Dr. M who I had talked to in December if he would take over as my GI. Monday of that week I flew down to San Diego for work. I finally heard from the first GI and she said another biopsy was warranted-This would be to check for any new damage to my liver. She was also aware I had requested Dr. M take over my case, and she would put the referral through. So now I'm between GI's so I emailed my primary care doc to see if she had the results of my MRI. On Tuesday I got a call from Dr. M's office setting up a consultation with him for the following week.

Thursday I got one of the scariest calls of my life. I was driving to a work appointment in San Diego with my boss and my phone rang-It was Kaiser so I answered it, on speaker phone, and it was my primary care doc-I could tell by the tone of her voice I wanted to get off speaker phone. She was calling with my MRI results-She indicated the radiologist who reviewed it no longer felt the tumor was benign, but that I needed to have a CT guided biopsy. This would allow them to biopsy the tumor and the liver at the same time. So, now I possibly have cancer...And I have to go in to a work appointment. Excellent timing. I got back to the hotel later, called my hubby, called my Mom, called my Dad, called my Sis. Just another thing to add to my plate full of crazy. I left San Diego and flew to Texas for my Stepbrother's graduation. My Dad is a physician so I had the opportunity to talk to him about what to expect, as well as what questions to ask since this isn't his expertise. One thing he recommended was to see if Dr. M had reviewed my MRI himself-Some docs will do this if they are specialists. I emailed him to see if he had-He actually picked up the phone and called me while I was in Texas-This already felt like a better Doctor/Patient relationship. He had only seen the radiologists report, but he talked to me a little bit about the biopsy, and what to expect...Cancer or no cancer there was a good possibility of surgery.

Surprisingly at this point, I still wasn't panicking. I just wanted some answers. I was ready for this roller coaster to come to a stop. The toxic hepatitis would be working it's way out of my system, and then I would have surgery and my LFT's would return to normal.

Too much to ask?