Learning I was sick, from a young age.

Like my dad stated, we learned about my liver being sick when I was about 10 years old.  It was the beginning of the summer before I went into 5th grade, and one of my close friends at the time had come down with mono.  My family had all noticed that I'd been looking a little "yellow" (aka jaundice), so they set up an appointment with my pediatrician to get me tested to see if I had come down with mono as well.

That was the first time I'd ever had a blood test.  The thought of that kinda scared me, but the lady drawing my blood told me I was braver than some grown men that came in there.   The results came back showing that I didn't have mono, but I was still really jaundice.  This was worrisome to my doctor, and he decided to test me for every type of hepatitis.  This went on for the whole summer, and many tests later, and my doctor decided it was time to send me to a specialist.

This was my first encounter with Dr. Barclay.  He was a stern, straight to the point man.  He told my parents that he wanted to do a biopsy on my liver, to figure out the diagnosis of what exactly was wrong with my liver.  He had an idea at what he thought it might be, but he wanted to confirm it with the biopsy.  So, I came home from school, and my mom sat me down and explained to me what he'd said, and then explained to me what a biopsy was.  Think about how scary that would be, to hear as a young kid, that you are going to have a long needle stuck into your side, so they can take a piece of your liver tissue to run tests on it.  I was TERRIFIED.

Going into the hospital with my parents the morning of the procedure, I didn't know what to think.  The first thing they had me do was put on a hospital gown and get into the hospital bed (which in the children's wing, somewhat resembled a giant crib).  I had brought my collection of stuffed animals with me, so I would have something comforting there with me.  Then the nurses came to give me an IV, and oh man, did I swear I was going to break my dad's fingers from squeezing them so hard.  Not long after that, they wheeled my bed into the room where they were going to do my biopsy, gave me the anesthetic, and I was out.  It felt like I'd just fallen asleep and woken up, and it was all over with.

The next morning, Dr. Barclay came into my hospital room and told my family that I had a rare form of hepatitis known as, Chronic Active Auto-Immune Hepatitis (non-contagious, hereditary, only found in women, and very rare.)  Basically, this meant my liver was being rejected by my other organs like a transplant, and had developed a lot of scar tissue on it.  This changed a lot of things for me.  It meant, I'd never be able to have alcohol,  I had to take anti-rejection medications, and that there was a good chance that one day I might have to have a liver transplant.

I guess one day came sooner than later.

--Jamie