What A Scare!!!

Just as Chad finds out his heart is doing good and we are over having to worry and deal with that for a long enough time, I go and get blood work done and find out that something is seriously wrong with my liver! I get a call from my doctor and she tells me that my liver enzymes are through the roof! My ALT (alanine aminotranferease) levels are at 119 and my AST (aspartate aminotransferase) levels are at 295!!! To give you an idea of how insanely high that is, last year my ALT was at 20 and my AST was at 27 which is considered to be on the low-end of the normal range!!! When your enzymes are that high it means that your cells in your liver are dying at an alarming rate.

As I do research to find out what could be going on with me (yikes), I realize that unless I've got a thyroid problem, a tumor, or an auto-immune disease that it's an absolute mystery as to why my enzymes are so high! I'm thinking... hmm, I don't drink, take prescription drugs let alone advil, hardly eat red meat, don't have diabetes, etc, and all of my other blood work came back negative and are in the normal ranges. My doctor agreed that it was a mystery because she knows about my almost too healthy lifestyle. So then she orders more tests to be done including an ultrasound on my liver. I go and get more blood work done including a hep panel. As I patiently wait for my test results and say a million prayers, I finally get a call from my fabulous doctor and she tells me that after a repeat of the first tests as well as what seems like a thousand blood tests, that everything came back negative and in normal range including my liver enzyme levels! With a pause on the phone and a big sigh of relief, all I could come back with is... what? I looked over at Chad who is standing beside me eagerly and patiently waiting for the verdict, gives me a big relieving smile and mutters "I knew it". I get off the phone and tell him what he already knows (by my reaction from the news). My doctor informed me that it was a lab error.
When I initially got my test results back (the ones with the elevated liver enzymes), Chad looked over them and told me not to worry, to go get the same blood tests done over again, and that my blood work "didn't get spun until several hours after being received at the lab" thus causing my cells to degenerate and the enzymes (inside my cells) to come out of my cells causing the results to be inaccurate. I called my doctor after my first set of tests and she assured me that my blood was spun right away. After Chad's years of experience as a processor in a lab, he was quick to inform me that mistakes happen and to simply get tested again because it could have been an error - which is completely understandable to me. However, if he hadn't had experience from working in a lab and looked at my results, he couldn't have assured me of that and it would have made my life a lot more difficult as I was going through this crap!

Deep down I didn't think anything was wrong because I'm relatively in tune with my body and wasn't experiencing any other problems or symptoms. It was just a very interesting couple of weeks which I surprisingly happened to be very calm about. Like I said, I knew deep down nothing was wrong but it also helped that I had the spirit with me and Heavenly Father to look to for guidance (who told me everything would be fine). I also thank my awesome naturopathic chiropractor in Alberta who I emailed about this "crisis" and he quickly answered my questions and reassured me that as long as I'm eating lots of fruit & veggies, exercising, and maintaining a positive attitude and a healthy lifestyle, and as long as I have no other symptoms, that I will be fine. I know almost everything there is to know about the liver now though so some good came out of it! Not to mention, my renewed desire to live and to be grateful for my health and my blessings.

I'm glad I'm okay. I was thinking I just might be dying and was making plans to travel the world (okay, so I went a little overboard). Chad did offer his liver to me though which I thought was very thoughtful... except, that would mean that he wouldn't be here which would make my life very unpleasant anyway! I'm glad I'm not sick... thank you healthcare system for making mistakes (I think??!!).