My Update from Mayo

It has been a long day...a long couple of days. I am glad to be home. I have had many people checking in on me today either through Facebook or text message. I have played this medical situation close to the vest because I wasn't sure what we were dealing with and it was a bit scary for me. Now that I am home, I will share what happened.

As I said in my last post, last fall routine labs came back with some abnormal levels. My liver counts were elevated and when my gastro doctor at Mayo repeated the tests two week later, they were even higher. This concerned him enough that he referred me on to a liver specialist. When I met with the liver specialist at the beginning of December he didn't seem too alarmed but wanted to follow up with more testing. He said that if he didn't get the results he was looking for and if my numbers didn't start going back toward normal he would perform a biopsy on my liver. I have talked to many people who say that the liver biopsy isn't that big of a deal but I was pretty freaked out about it. I went on Dec. 28 for a repeat of my labs and an MRI. The labs looked better than they had, although they still weren't normal. When the nurse called me on New Year's Eve to tell me that my MRI looked fine and the labs were better she said the doctor wasn't ready to cancel the biopsy just yet. He wanted to see what my labs would show when I went back up on Jan. 13.

That brings us to this morning. I went for my blood draw first thing this morning and expected for the doctor to give me an answer about the biopsy when I saw him at 10:30. He didn't do that. Instead he said that my blood levels were better and heading toward normal but that he still had concerns and he wanted one more test to determine whether or not I would need the biopsy. All morning I felt like it was bait and switch. I would reach one milestone and then he would set a new criteria. I appreciated his caution but at the same time, I was ready to be done with all of this and I wasn't liking what I was hearing. Finally, the call came late this afternoon that the biopsy was NOT needed and that Hubby and I were free to leave Jacksonville and return home. Music to my ears!

We don't know why my liver counts were elevated. He said it could have been a virus that they didn't identify, could have been a reaction to some medication (don't know what that would have been though), could have been any number of things. The important thing is that it isn't what he thought it could have been, among which included an autoimmune liver disease.

Tonight I am thanking God for His healing. I am thankful that I get to sleep in my own bed and that I don't have to have any more tests for 6 months. I am thankful for my Hubby who goes with me and puts up with my whining, grumping at him and need for constant reassurance through the process. And I am thankful for family and friends who check in on me and support me with prayers and messages of caring and love. It's been a roller coaster of a day, but at the end of it all, I am feeling thankful.