"There's a myth that anyone who has a liver problem has brought it on themselves" This quote is from a Crohn's disease patient living with a blocked portal vein hoping for a liver transplant (Independent 31st Oct 2010)

Friday 26 April 2013

Happy Birthday!

 
 
 
 
Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday dear 56 old Fiona
Happy Birthday to me!
 
T made the cake.  He does all the baking; bread and cakes, having been inspired by the 'Great British Bake-Off'.
 
We've had the 'House' DVD for ages but never watched the last episode, so that's my teatime treat today.
Tomorrow I'm to be treated to 'brunch' at a nice local restaurant:
 
 
Thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes: Dave, Lib, Uncles and Aunts, Susannah, Karen, James&Marion, Val.
 
 

Tuesday 23 April 2013

Transplant talk

Had my 3-monthly clinic appointment with Dr Al, my hepatologist, yesterday.

It was a joint clinic with a consultant hepatologist from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, one of the UK's transplant centres.
Dr El had obviously read up my case notes and was pretty sure I contracted the Hep B in Kenya, based on the genotype and the dates.  How I contracted it still isn't clear.
He backed up Dr Al's treatment plan for the overlap Hep B and autoimmune.
And then dropped a bombshell.
If the cancer comes back he would take me on at Queens for a liver transplant.  He thinks I was 'lucky' that the tumour 2 1/2 years ago was small and on the outer edge of a segment.  I may not be so 'lucky' next time.  And like O'Blimey my surgeon, he is pretty sure there will be a next time.  He said that once you get cell changes in one part of the liver it tends to happen elsewhere.  So to continue with the 6-monthly MRI scans and, in his words, if there is so much as a whiff of anything suspicious I go for transplant assessment.