God Never Blinks

Well... I thought I'd give an update on everything since it's been a little while. Results came back... I had the liver biopsy on May 19, 2011. Took a couple days off from work to recover from it, but over all it wasn't as bad as I had originally thought it would be. Word of advice... if you ever have to have surgery and you're not sure what exactly is going to happen, DON'T look it up on the Internet. IT WILL FREAK YOU OUT AND YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO STOP THINKING ABOUT IT. Sure there are extreme cases sometimes, but more than likely it won't be you and there's no reason to worry about it and let it ruin your day. Ok, now that I've had my two cents about that...

Results from the biopsy came back about a week later and I was officially diagnosed with Autoimmune Hepatitis (where your immune system attacks your bad AND healthy liver cells). My doctor had a suspicion from the beginning that this is what my symptoms were pointing to. I'd never even heard of this disease before, so I didn't really know what to expect - and really still don't but I'm learning more each day/week/month...

Before anyone jumps to conclusions, no this is not caused from drug use (def DON'T do drugs) or unhealthy habits or any other crazy thing that might be out there and NO it is NOT contagious. Doctors aren't sure what causes autoimmune diseases and there is no way to prevent them from happening. In my case, autoimmune hepatitis is more common in women (got to love those XX chromosomes) and can often result from genetics (my mom has rheumatoid arthritis, another autoimmune disease). These are pretty much the only reasons I can think of that may have caused me to now have this autoimmune disease. Good news though - my doctor said it was caught EARLY - there was no scarring or cirrhosis on my liver.

-WHAT I CAN'T DO -

Drink Alcohol - Probably forever

Take Tylenol - No worries, headaches are for the birds

-WHAT I CAN DO- 

Everything Else!! 

-WHAT TO EXPECT -

From here on out I will be getting blood work done every now and then just to make sure that my liver enzyme and blood count levels are where they need to be. The medicines I am currently taking help with any inflammation in my liver and suppress my immune system so it won't attack my liver. I had my last blood work done today to check my enzymes so I'm hoping to get good results back from this later in the week! I also had blood work last week to check my blood count - doctor said that everything looks good!!

Another side note - I've been told that normally people with this disease can go into remission within the first 3 years after being diagnosed... since mine was caught a little earlier, I was told it could possibly be sooner than this for me. This is what I'm hoping for! I will do my best to keep everyone updated... sometimes it can be hard with having a busy schedule but I thank you for reading and for your support!

Everything can change in the blink of an eye. 
But don't worry; God never blinks.