QUEEN ELIZABETH UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL BIRMINGHAM

Naturally the ‘crash and burn’ episode in September gave the hospital no option but to stop the second treatment. This left me with nowhere to go until new drugs and treatments to beat Hepatitis C became available. So I continued attending the monthly clinics to monitor my condition and manage the drugs I was still taking rectify the ‘fallout’ from Bali.

In December 2011 my clinical nurse at the hospital retired, and the Gastro-enterology department started using locums to make up the shortfall until the department could be re-organised. While all this was going on though, that one anomaly in my blood results still remained. It was called AFP (Alpha-Fetoprotein) and my levels were very high. Possible reasons for this were explained to me back when I first entered Gloucester’s care, and there were only really 2 known causes of the kind of levels I was registering. Either a) I was pregnant, or b) there was a tumour present, somewhere, probably in the liver. This tumour, despite all the tests, scans and screenings was proving difficult to locate. Fortunately for me one of my routine Gloucester clinic visits put me in front of Dr Trupathi, a visiting locum helping out from Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Birmingham. This hospital was universally regarded as a centre of excellence for liver related issues and one of this country’s main transplant centres and teaching hospitals, if not in the whole of Europe. 

Dr Trupathi took one look at my medical notes and said he was going to refer me to Birmingham for treatment, and I attended my first clinic there in June 2012. Upon my arrival at Birmingham the team immediately zeroed in on this high AFP level in order to find the elusive tumour. They then conducted the same sort of thorough investigation the CIA must have waged in finding Osama Bin Laden. And in both cases the intention was the same, to seek, identify, and then destroy the bastard.

It was finally an MRI scan on the 20^th September that found where the shit had been hiding. I did receive a phone call from the hospital first to warn me of this discovery, but the clever way this was confirmed in writing gave me some encouragement and hope,

"(...) the MRI scan performed in Birmingham on 20^th September showed a very suspicious area in the liver which very likely represents early liver cancer. The Multidisciplinary team discussed the possible approaches to the management of this. Because of your underlying cirrhosis and early liver failure, we think that liver transplantation is probably the best way forward".

OK? But what to do, jump for joy because they had finally found a cause of potential major concern, or panic because I’d just been told I had cancer?