Good news today.

I saw my liver doctor today. Since my diagnosis in September, we have sort of been holding our breath, waiting on a few tests and results to determine exactly where we are in the disease process. My experience with Lyme disease in October put a lot of that on hold. Back in September, I had an ERCP- that's Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography, and yes I can say it. Thank you very much. This is much like an EGD, or upper endoscopy, but they go a little further into the stomach in order to view the bile ducts. This is the test that backed up my abnormal liver enzymes, and confirmed my diagnosis of PSC. Then in January I had a liver biopsy. This was to help determine whether or not the bile duct disease has yet effected my liver, and would help with staging the disease. There are four stages, stage I is the very early disease, and stage IV is end-stage. I am happy to say I am in stage I!


I had to wait several long weeks, but finally got to see the doc today for results of the liver biopsy, as well as labs I had drawn yesterday. It was worth the wait! My labs are perfect, he used the word "pristine". Not a single abnormality. This sort of news is taken with *slight* caution, as the medication I am taking for this is known to improve lab values, even though it will not necessarily slow progression of the disease. My liver biopsy showed no intrahepatic involvement at all! This means the disease is currently limited to the bile ducts outside of the liver. My liver is almost perfectly healthy, aside from some very mild chronic hepatitis. My doctor knows how panicked I was in the beginning of all this, and remembered the many, many questions and fears I still had at our last visit in November. He said "Shawnee, this is the news you wanted to hear!". He said he couldn't be happier with the results, and they are about as good as I can get with this disease. At my age, with no liver involvement to date, my chances of needing a liver transplant in my lifetime went down dramatically. Finally, he said "Sweetheart, breathe, smile, go live your life, go home and have a glass of champagne!"


I did, and I will.