I got back from Texas on Tuesday...Went back to work Wednesday and got a call from Kaiser. They had a cancellation for the next day and wanted to schedule my biopsy for Thursday. It was quick, but I wanted answers so I was all for it.
My hubby and I got to Kaiser bright and early to check in-They took me back pretty quickly. They would need to start my IV and get me ready for my Twilight state again. I was still hoping for sparkly vampires, but again I knew it wouldn't be that fun. My nurse hit a "gold mine" as she called it when she tried to start my IV so I ended up with blood all over my hand, all over my blanket, and all over the floor. Didn't bother me any, but I guess it was a little unnerving to my husband who saw me later with blood all over me! This biopsy took a lot longer, and was a lot more painful-the versed didn't do it's magic this time so I was relatively aware of everything. I'm guessing that had to do with the much more detailed instructions I had to follow this time. I was put in the CT machine, and then marked. The radiologist would have me breathe in and he would push the needle through-It was a lot of pressure each time and I was hoping it was over quickly-My body wanted to go to sleep from the drug combo they gave me, but I was too aware of what was going on. It was a weird sensation. I made it through and was ready for a nap but sleep wasn't easy to come by this time. My hubby came back and got me when it was time and we got some lunch on the way home. Since I had to fast prior to my MRI I was pretty hungry. I got home, ate half my sandwich and immediately felt nauseous. My mom was bringing dinner by later and by the time she got there I was in bed-I felt like I was going to vomit and my head was hurting. Not a happy combo.
I had my consultation with Dr. M the next day so I decided to write up the questions I had for him in regards to the Hepatic Adenoma, because I will generally forget about 90% of them when I walk in the door. I felt better by the time I went to bed, and slept decently so I figured that was a good sign that the nausea was short lived. I got to my appointment with Dr. M in the morning, we talked about my biopsy, and then I was ready to go through my list of questions. Dr. M, was apparently a baseball player at some point in his life, because he threw me a CURVE ball...He told me I had Autoimmune Hepatitis. You know-the diagnosis the other GI told me I didn't have 6months ago?
Holy hell...Now I'm thrown for a loop. I was staring at my questions on my paper waiting for him to tell me that surgery on the tumor will still make this all go away. Instead what he's telling me is that I now have this disease for life, I was born with it. And then he went on about the immune system and how it's like an army. When the body gets an infection the immune system fires on the infection and then the brain tells it to retreat once it's done with it's job. Well with an autoimmune disease the brain gets the message a little screwy. It tells it's army guys to fire on the wrong thing, and then apparently never tells it to stop. In my case I could get an infection in my finger, or a bacteria, or a toxin and my brain says "FIRE ON THE LIVER!" So really my liver isn't the problem, it's my brain. But, the doctors will treat the liver-Not the brain. Many people in my life are probably disappointed by this. This explains why I was originally misdiagnosed as having toxic hepatitis-We took away alcohol, meds, vitamins and anything else that could make my immune system attack so my LFT's had no where to go but down. But in May I got a virus-This is what triggered my numbers to increase, because my army guys were engaging in friendly fire on my liver instead of engaging in hand to hand combat on that virus.
I still had these tumor questions, but since some of them worked into this diagnosis I ran them by Dr. M. First was in regards to babies. He said I was looking at 2 years before I could try to conceive. This was due to the course of treatment I would be put on. This was when the tears started flowing pretty steadily. My world was flipped on it's head entirely in 10 minutes. When I was finally able to talk through the tears we discussed the treatment plan. He didn't want to put me on Prednisone so he would start me on another steroid called Entocort-It came with less side effects than the Prednisone and would treat the liver. The steroid would cool off the liver, help reduce the inflammation, and bring my LFT's back down to normal range. Then once that happened we would start Azathioprine-This is an immuno-suppressant that they give patients following transplants. It can cause birth defects which is why I wouldn't be able to try to get pregnant while on this medicine. We would treat the AIH and then check on the adenoma at a later time-This was due to the fact that sometimes AIH cells can mimic an adenoma on an MRI so we would treat the AIH and see if it took care of the adenoma.
On top of all this, I was also told I can't drink alcohol ever again. Doctors are good at taking away all your fun.
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