My Liver is Misbehaving

Two days ago I saw the vampires, who drew blood for my regular set of "how's-the-ol'-liver-working?" lab tests. Yesterday afternoon, at nearly 6:00 p.m. on Friday, my transplant coordinator called - and given the timing and knowing she was working late, I knew the news wasn't going to be so great. It wasn't.

Looks as though the supposed Hepatitis C flare-up I had three months ago has recurred. Here were the results for the key labs we track:

Alkaline Phosphate 316
GGT 570
AST 355
ALT 417

AST and ALT are the more critical elements and given that the normal range for both is 0 - 40, my results aren't good news. I need to go to my transplant center next week to have a liver biopsy, so we can find out what's gone awry.

I don't have to throw myself off the roof or anything yet, but I'm worried. The best guess right now is that I might be experiencing some degree of rejection. I'm not familiar with this (I had a rejection episode when I was in ICU after my transplant, but don't remember it - or much of anything else - from that period of time). I now get to learn about the different degrees of rejection and what is done to treat it. I thought if you experienced rejection, the liver simply failed, fell out of your body and you needed a new one so desperately that anyone involved jumped into a helicopter to fly around and look for a liver. Apparently, that only happens on TV.

When you read this post, would you please say a little prayer that my liver settles down and gets back to work? I will be ever so grateful.