November 16th, 2011...Not a good day. But here's how that week sort of played out. My Grandma (a.k.a. G-Meister) had passed away at the age of 94 over the weekend. My Mom was out of town when it happened, so I was the one who got the call. Hospice was there to take care of everything, but I took some of her personal belongings and her purse from her nursing home. I hadn't been feeling great that week-Bouts of nausea that came on really quickly, feeling really full even though I was barely eating, and my urine was really dark yellow/orange. My husband and I had been trying to conceive so I thought maybe I'm pregnant?? On Sunday night November 14th I ate one or two bites of food and felt as though I had just committed that deadly sin gluttony on an all-you-can-eat buffet. Something wasn't right. I logged in to Kaiser's website and secured a doctor's appointment for the next day.
Saw my primary care doctor on Monday and explained every symptom, and all meds I was taking. I had been taking Ibuprofen for quite some time due to a bad back so she thought maybe I had an ulcer...Get blood work and we'll see what it says. Of course I'm still holding out hope that I'm pregnant. She did ask "Any possibility you're pregnant?" Tuesday Morning November 16th I get the results of my blood work and the only results that were not in normal range were my Liver Function Tests or LFT's. My Billirubin, ALT's and AST's were high. Being that it's 6am when I see these and the only resource I have is Google I was a little concerned. I emailed her that I was freaking out and needed to talk to her asap. Of course I also ended the email with "Does this mean I'm not pregnant, because I don't see any results for that?" Hey, a girl's gotta keep her hopes up! Spoiler alert-I wasn't pregnant. At this point I've not told anyone what's going on, but I've been panicking at work. Got a call from My Doctor who said yes, there is definitely something going on and we need to do further tests so I would need more blood work-Luckily my work is next door to Kaiser Lab so this was an easy fix.
I called my Sister in tears while I was heading over there-I had NO clue what was going on and needed someone to talk to. I was so upset that I had done this to myself...Caused by Ibuprofen or something and I was scared about not only the health aspects, but also having to tell my family and husband that I caused this. My sister of course talked me off that ledge, but then I get a call from my Mom. She's back in town and we're trying to expedite my Grandma's cremation so that my cousin who was visiting could hand carry her ashes back to Connecticut. Of course this process couldn't be done without Grandma's will...which was in her purse...which was at my house...which was locked...See a problem here? Now on top of all this I was miles away from a project deadline at work, and was buried and overwhelmed there. I get back to work after this second lab trip, and walk in to my manager's cube in a flood of tears. I think I said something to this effect "Ihavesomethingwrongwithmyhealthandmygrandmadiedandmymomneedsmetomeetheratthe
funeralhomeandmyworkqueueisoutofcontrolandimfreakingout."
She translated that and told me to go home, deal with the funeral home stuff, deal with my health stuff, and come back the next day and we would work out a plan of action for my work queue/project. Ok, feeling a little better to have one stress off my shoulders. Call my poor husband who is a teacher and gets a minuscule amount of time to talk and tell him "there's something wrong with my liver, we don't know what...hold on I'm getting another call. Oh it's my doctor-let me call you back." Click over to chat with the Doc who tells me "I talked to the GI department and we're going to admit you to the hospital." Sorry, what? Hospital? Me? Overnight and stuff? So, a little more freaking out during this time. Call husband back and say "I'm being admitted to the hospital...hold on I'm getting another call. Oh it's my doctor-let me call you back." Click over to chat with the Doc who tells me they would call me when a room was ready and I didn't need to go right away for blood work since I was so efficient in getting it done at the lab next door. Super. It's like the Ritz, they'd call when my suite was to my liking. Call husband back again who had now left work since the weird half message he got from me was that I was going to the hospital (poor guy). Get home, get Grandma's purse, meet Mom at the funeral home and hand over the will, double check she doesn't need me for anything else and let her know I was being admitted to the hospital. She was a little surprised too. I also called my manager and told her I wouldn't be at work the next day...and possibly the next.
The nice thing about getting the call when your room is ready is that you get to pack up your stuff. I packed a DVD player, comfy jammies, and my creature comforts. That's the only nice thing about being admitted to a hospital though.
Phew. That was a crazy couple of hours I had. I got the call that my room was ready, and headed on down to the hospital to check in. My favorite part of the check in process was when they asked "Why are you being admitted?" Super...I didn't know, and neither did they. So, my Tuesday night adventure in the hospital was for no reason at all. Well that's not entirely true, I did get to have 4 different needle sticks in my arms since they were having trouble starting an IV, which they never even put anything in-It has to be there, just in case. I had the room to myself, my hubby came and hung out, and I slept pretty decently even with the every couple hour wake up for blood draws.
The first test for the next day was an ultrasound in the morning...With no breakfast. Boo. Get back from the hourish-long test, hungry and thirsty and ready for some super yummy hospital food and the doctor tells me they saw something on the ultrasound and I needed to have an MRI. With no breakfast or lunch. Double boo. MRI was that afternoon and then I finally got a turkey sandwich...it was what I would have ordered for my last meal it was so good at that point in my hunger pains. Nothing else happened on Wednesday except my Hubby, Mom, and cousin came to visit and they brought me real food which was delicious, but I still couldn't eat much which sucked. I did a lot of waiting around on Thursday morning too.
At this point we knew I had Hepatitis, and from my blood work we knew it wasn't viral, but what it was caused from still unknown. I had taken an herbal supplement and we were hanging our hat on that being the cause at this point. It wasn't FDA regulated, and had ingredients in it that were closely related to some that have been known to cause liver problems. So again, I'm upset and embarrassed that I caused this to myself. Thursday afternoon the Doctor comes in with the MRI results and tells me I have a tumor on my liver called a Hepatic Adenoma.
Most people might freak out when they hear the word tumor, but I was sort of excited...I thought, ok cool-We remove the tumor and everything goes back to normal right? Not exactly. The doctor told me the tumor is probably caused from birth control (estrogen driven) and that it was unrelated to the Hepatitis. Not exactly what I wanted to hear Doc. So in the span of 48 hours I've been told my liver is inflamed from an unknown cause, and I have a tumor. Sweet. I'm having an awesome week. She told me it was 2cm, and they don't really worry about them unless they're over 5cm or they hurt. Since I was off hormonal birth control pills now there was a chance it would go away on it's own. Ok, sounds good to me. Further down the line I realized I should have done more research on these, but that's for a later post.
I was finally discharged on Thursday, given the ok to travel to Texas for Thanksgiving the next week to see my Family (thank goodness Dad is a Doctor or I don't think they would have let me go!) and was given the signs to look out for-Jaundice (yellowing of the skin/eyes), confusion, and pretty much anything else that was funky. I would have a follow up appointment with the GI clinic when I returned and I would need to get more blood work. I was still sort of mystery at this point, but was happy to be sprung from the hospital, and was very excited to have a week of vacation to help de-stress a little. Of course I was also told no alcohol which is never fun news prior to a vacation! Oh, the things we do for the love of our liver.
Sorry this post got so long...and to think, this was only what happened in 48 hours!
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