Living With Liver Cirrhosis

I already typed everything out, in massive detail and it all deleted! Silly me! So here goes again.

I have had an undiagnosed condition, which has been stirring for over 2 years now... That’s just the time I’ve known about it. Professionals think I could have had this for at least 5 years.

It was left for ages until I suddenly had to go into hospital with severe pain on my right side. Things haven’t been the same since. I have been receiving a lot of treatment throughout the past 15 months and the only thing that has been discovered is that this illness has been destroying my body & left me with Liver Cirrhosis. It took a while to even get to that stage, I was first told that I had Lymphoma, which is a type of Cancer and was led to believe that for a couple of months. Obviously in this time I’d started to tell those I care about. This was then dropped after a biopsy of my lymph nodes and I was diagnosed with Liver Disease. I wasn’t getting any better so I got transferred to a London hospital so that I could be with specialists, I spent ages in there having a variety of different tests and scans and a liver biopsy was done, showing that I in fact have Liver Cirrhosis. This means that my liver has been so damaged throughout the years that there is no chance of turning back the clocks now. The damage is done, and what has caused this I am still unaware to this day, it’s not alcohol related and it doesn’t seem to be genetic either.

The only way to resolve my condition is through transplant. Although this is a massive risk and could shorten my life span drastically. I recently got told that I am ‘more likely to still be alive this time next year without a transplant’. Which I won’t lie to you was horrible to hear.

This means that for now my only option is to continue living my life how I am now. Which honestly isn’t good. There are so many symptoms to liver cirrhosis and everyone will experience different but my main thing is fatigue and nosebleeds. I have days where I can literally sleep for 16 hours and wake up and need a nap. I have no energy or strength to get up out of bed.

This is something I really struggle with and as I’m only 20 I want to be getting out and living my life but my health is seriously dragging me down.

Not only do I have Liver Cirrhosis but I have an illness on top of that which is slowly stopping everything else from working so efficiently, this has already had an affect on my liver & spleen. Also, we won’t mention what it has done to my mental health.

Due to this I am on different medications which I have to take constantly throughout the day, which is a struggle when I'm trying to live my life. It’s really difficult for me to cope with this and I don’t always think I’m doing too well at it. People don’t always make it easy for me either, I often get tagged in things on Facebook like ‘tag a girl who’s always tired’ but that’s because people don’t really understand what I’m going through. This is a struggle every single day because I can't do things that everyone else can do, and on top of that I am constantly in unbearable pain from my liver.

Please remember that not all illnesses are visable. I can’t stand up for long periods of time, I can’t walk around all day, I can’t lift heavy things, I don’t want to be treated any differently. I just may need a bit of help at times.

Katie Morgan