Out of the hospital...Now what?

First thing to do when getting out of the hospital? Go on vacation. Check!

My hubby and I spent Thanksgiving week in Texas with my Dad, Stepmom, Stepbrother, Sister, Brother-in-Law, and niece. It was the perfect way to get away from the stress of being in the hospital. I was still pretty tired which is one of the side effects of Hepatitis.

We went out to dinner to a local Mexican restaurant one night and while we were on the porch waiting for a table my hubby asked if I wanted a margarita...I gave him the death stare since I wasn't allowed to have a margarita and it was then just as the evening sunlight hit my face that everyone realized my eyeballs were as yellow as this blog. FYI, I chose this background for it's jaundice-like color. I like to coordinate my colors with my diseases. Pray I never get gangrene! So, the jaundice had set in-luckily it was mostly in the white of my eyes and not too noticeable in my skin tone, but still it was a little unnerving and not all that flattering. I mean I look okay in yellow, but I wouldn't choose it first. Especially not on my eyeballs.

As soon as I got back from vacation I was back at the lab for more bloodwork-At this point my primary care doc had put in standing orders for me to go 2x a week. Yeah! When the lab tech told me I had 99 orders waiting I almost croaked! I got a call for a GI consultation all within a week and half of me being in the hospital...they were moving fast on my case which made me happy.

Met with the GI doc who had some pretty awesome credentials so I was happy to be in good hands. We went through my entire life history it seemed like. I gave her the bottle for that herbal supplement I took so she could review the ingredients-She was still on board with the Toxic Hepatitis diagnosis but something in one of my labs indicated I had antibodies from an Autoimmune disease so they wanted to rule this out/diagnose this. She told me a biopsy of the liver would be scheduled to check for scarring. This would help to determine if we were looking at AIH.

My biopsy was scheduled for December 7th, but was performed by another GI specialist due to an already scheduled vacation by my GI doc. We wanted to move on it, so I didn't care who did it! This was an adventure-I was put into Twilight state, and not the one involving Edward and Jacob, but one involving Versed. They told me I'd be in/out of it, and wouldn't feel anything but they would tell me to breathe in/out during the needle stick. I remember being in the room, talking to the doc, and then being wheeled out. No clue anything had happened...Works for me! They put me on my right side for the next 2 hours which was MISERABLE! My hip was killing me. None of the nurses told me their names so when I woke up from my catatonic state I yelled out "NURSE! I need a nurse!" and what do you know, someone came by. I suppose they don't care for patients yelling when there are several other patients in the room. I finally got off my side, and had to lay there for another couple hours. The liver is very vascular so they are concerned with bleeding after these procedures, I was concerned with getting a sandwich since I hadn't eaten or drank anything in like 15 hours. Here's what I learned while in recovery though-I was the youngest patient in the room, and everyone else had polyps and diverticulitis. I heard the same speech given over and over again to all the baby boomers and beyond in that room. Made me thankful they were checking my liver and not my pooper.

I finally got my sandwich, and Oreos. Score.

Overall this procedure was not bad...I took it easy for the rest of the day but wasn't overly sore. I was back at work the next day and it just felt like I had a bruise on my side-You really couldn't even see much of a mark.

The doc told me I could have results by that Friday since my GI doc and the GI doc who performed the biopsy would be gone the next week. I'm not what you would call a patient patient so I like results.

So, what do you do when you don't get them as planned? Call someone else...Enter Dr. M. He called me on the following Friday night (a week later than I was supposed to hear) on my cell to tell me he was filling in, had gotten my message(s) :0P and was calling with the results. Inconclusive. Awesome, you stuck a needle in my liver to find out nothing. There was no major scarring which indicated whatever was going on was fairly new. This was a good thing as it meant there wasn't a lot of damage to the liver already.

So, once everyone was back in town the diagnosis was Toxic Hepatitis. No treatment plan except to wait it out while getting blood work 2x a week to check my LFT's.