Anyone But Me

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Hi guys, it's me again!


For the past 8 years, I have been suffering from Autoimmune Liver Disease. Autoimmune disease is when a person's immune system mistakenly attacks the body of that person. The immune system is what usually fights off bacteria and viruses. It is normally able to tell the difference between foreign cells and the cells in your body. However, with an autoimmune disease, the immune system mistakes part of your body, like joints or skin, or in extreme cases organs. My immune system attacks my liver


I was diagnosed in 2012 when I was 15 and had just started my GCSE’s, a crucial time when you’re in school. I don’t remember much from that time, as I seemed to have blocked out that part of my life. Accounts I have been given by family has helped me to piece the little memories I do have together. 


It was the weekend and my routine at the time was to go to football training on a Saturday then go home, ‘study’ (this rarely took place and meant playing video games) other than chores that were it. 


Although, this weekend was slightly different from coming home from football I was unusually tired and slept most of the day away. My mum had noticed that my skin had changed in tone. It was darker and ashy, she had seen the colour of my eyes were now yellowy. 


This concerned her and she booked a GP appointment for the next working day which would have been Monday. So I went to the GP on Monday and had blood tests and was told that I would receive the results in a week. 

The next day I was feeling much worse. I felt nauseous and the other symptoms were much more noticeable. My mum took me to A&E, I remember not wanting to go because I had coursework that was due for the next day that I hadn’t even started and I knew that in A&E it takes ages to be seen and ‘Nothings even wrong with me’ so I didn’t want to go. But the choice was out of my hands as I found myself taking more blood tests. We got to A&E quite early like 9.00am and I didn’t leave. 


I was admitted in the late afternoon as the results of the blood tests were abnormal. I won’t bore you with all the medical jargon because, to be honest, I still don’t understand half the things they are talking about myself. But there was a particular thing they were looking for in the blood results and it is called Liver Function Test (LFT) under this sort of test they look for several different levels. Just to give context one test they look for is called AST (AST is an enzyme, AST is normally present in blood at low levels. An increase in AST levels may indicate liver damage, disease or muscle damage). The nominal level for this test is between 0 - 45 when my results came back my AST levels were well over 1000.


This gave me and my family a shock. I was now an inpatient and was sent from the local A&E to Kings College London Hospital which is a liver specialist hospital. 


I went through this whole period feeling like I was on some cloud when I talk to people or reminisce about this experience I don’t remember much, it was all a weird feeling as physically I felt fine, maybe more tired than usual but other than that I felt everything was good so things were difficult for me to understand at this time. Thinking back, I didn't care what was going on, all I cared about was girls and how I was gonna make my money when i left school.   


I can’t stress how much of an impact the whole thing had on me, in that moment you look at everything because you don’t know what the outcome is, I thought about some crazy stuff at age 15 because I was going through so much. All the tests I underwent were not just a physical strain but also mentally straining.


I hope this post was insightful and gave you some kind of understanding of how things started for me in this long and ongoing journey. Thank you for taking the time to read and hope you will return for the next post which will be out soon.


(In future I will try and post my blogs on a Monday and Friday. Beginning this Friday )

Love & Guidance 
Keiran 
Picture of me at age 15 after having a liver biopsy procedure



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