Two weeks ago I went for a liver CT scan. Three days later I went for my liver appt. The days before my scan and appt, I didn’t think too much of everything. One of the reasons why I didn’t think too much of the scan and the appt is because I was 1000% sure that I didn’t have liver cancer. And the reason why I even thought about cancer is because I’ve had other test (incl a previous liver CT scan) done for my liver last year, and the year before, and whenever I heard back from the liver doctors, regarding the results of the test, they would say, “there’s no tumours, no lesions.”
A lot of the times when I attend my liver appts, the clinic would arrange for me to see a junior doctor and the air would feel lighter. But on Mon 6 Jan, the air felt less lighter. The first thing I noticed was when the liver co-ordinator mentioned a senior doctor’s name. This liver specialist was no junior doctor. The liver co-ordinator not only mentioned the senior doctor’s name, but she also added by saying, “the doctor will discuss it with you.” She was responding to my query of my CT scan results.
When my number finally came up on the screen, my church friend and I walked in to the doctor’s room. As I was just about to take a seat, I realised the doctor was a different doctor, which was fine because this doctor was also a senior doctor. After the “hi” and “how are you”, the doctor started sharing the CT scan results with me.
“Blood vessels are good… no tumours or lesions… there’s cirrhosis…”
Liver cirrhosis is a chronic, progressive condition in which healthy liver tissue is replaced with scar tissue (fibrosis), leading to the gradual loss of liver function. This scarring disrupts the liver’s normal structure and impairs its ability to perform vital functions such as detoxifying the blood, producing essential proteins, and processing nutrients.
Oh, cirrhosis? The last time I had cirrhosis was before my liver transplant and it is because of cirrhosis I needed a liver transplant to save my life. Am I having an early stage of cirrhosis? Then, I asked the doctor, “how long until patients need another liver transplant when they have cirrhosis?”
Although the doctor didn’t give me a number or a direct answer, because every patient is different, there was one thing she said during the appt that wasn’t too bad to hear for the ears. The doctor said, “there are cases of patients with cirrhosis and their liver still works.”
I had a mixture of different thoughts in my mind after the appt. From, see, I knew I didn’t have cancer to, argh! I’m done with all this health and medical stuff! The truth is, I can have many thoughts, many emotions, many feelings on this mater. There are many ways or directions my mind can wander and go about. I can be fearful. I can be hopeful. My thoughts might be wrong. My thoughts might be right. I don’t know. And maybe I might need more time to think of what I should think and feel about this situation. For this reason, staying clear-headed is the safe and sane thing to do – clearing my head from any or all thoughts of this news and focusing on my faith (relationship with God).
“Think, God,” I told myself four or five days after the liver appt.