My Lousy Liver

When I was studying for my PGCE, a lecturer asked us to draw a picture of a scientist.   Despite the majority of us being female, most of the drawings showed a man in a white coat with mad hair.   No surprise there; science is a male dominated world where men get all the fame and glory.   To help change our views, we were tasked to research and present a female scientist.   Naturally there were plenty of Powerpoints on Marie Curie, Virginia Apgar and Katherine Johnson, but if I could have that opportunity again, I would present to you Sheila Sherlock, the Liver Lady. Sheila Patricia Violet Sherlock, born March 31 1918 in Dublin, but raised in Folkstone, Kent, was one of those pioneering women who broke the all-male moulds through her brilliance and determination. In pre-war Britain, female applicants to medical schools were at a great disadvantage, and she was rejected by several colleges before gaining a place at Edinburgh University in 1936. H...

When I was feeling really ill and my poor liver was not coping at all, I found there was only one meal that I could eat and function reasonably well on.  The thing is, if your liver cannot properly detox, you can only eat foods that are pretty toxin free.  So once I had found this dish, I ate it day in, day out.  As you can imagine, I got a little bored and frustrated with this overly virtuous and extremely restricted diet, so we gave it a name: Soylent Green. Soylent Green comes from an old Sci-Fi horror movie which is based in a time when there are no farms left and people survive on the gruel produced by the Soylent Corporation, which comes in 3 colours, red, yellow and best of all, green. I don't wish to spoil the story line in case you ever watch it, so I won't divulge what was in their spu, but this is my version a.k.a chilli sin carne - or chilli without meat. Chilli Sin Carne: lots of veg (onions, garlic, chillies, sweet potato, mushrooms, courgettes, peppers...

When I mark children's writing, I often see attempts at using ambitious vocabulary, which sadly do not quite suit the context.  The missed bus is devastating or the petrifying loss of a water bottle.  This happens because they know they are synonyms for everyday words but they are not sure of the exact meaning or implied intensity.  I realise I was like this with many medical terms. If you had asked me what chronic means, I would have said really bad.  So being told I had a chronic liver condition made me panic.  But no, chronic means that it is long lasting, or even life-long with this condition. It doesn't have to be life-threatening. Similarly, if I had had to describe cirrhosis I would probably have conjured up a picture of something like a large gherkin in the shape of a triangle drawn by a four year old and pickled in alcohol.  The shape is fairly accurate, as is the lumpy surface but there is no pickling in sight, because cirrhosis is not nece...

Just wanted to share what this Canadian man is saying about our condition. And if you get to read this Robert, well done for getting international publicity for our quirky condition. Liver disease survivor wants everyone to get tested

The two worst feelings in the world, after grief, are surely hope and fear .  Hope is not always good you know, there is that desperate clung-to hope that comes with a cheery 'Let's wait and see, it might not be all that bad!' whilst deep down you feel impending doom. And then there are times when hope doesn't even get a look in.  Her sunshine demeanour is blotted out by a steam-roller of dread.  As winter drew in, fear was my constant companion.  All the usual, well-known sensible liver problems had given a negative result, so in the knowledge that my mother had died of pancreatic cancer, I was placed on the 'urgent oncology screening' list.  Christmas 2017 was a weird one.  My first born was 5,000 miles away.  All good here, I chirruped by text.  But it wasn't.  Scott and I cried buckets, curled up in a two person ball.  Fixated on a worst case scenario, Dr Google had already found me a place in a hospice before I had even ha...

When I am teaching, I often ask the child who answers a question, 'How do you know?'  This is to check for misunderstandings and help others, who were unsure, learn how the solution was derived through that child's explanation. Answers require some prior knowledge.  But what if there is no prior knowledge? This was my experience with my liver.  I had felt not quite right for some time.  Nothing stood out as being amiss; I was just always exhausted, a bit old-lady achy, and I developed what I assumed was stress related itching.  Menopause, I thought.  Stress of teaching, I felt.  Not a must see the doctor issue, I believed. I now know that there are no symptoms for the early stages of liver disease except fatigue and itching.  It is only when the liver is so damaged it is unable to cope with the usual onslaught of normal daily life and a typical 'not quite as healthy as we'd like to think' diet that doctor-trip-worthy symptoms appear. For me...