I've been really slack in posting these. I really have. I've been so busy/stressed/depressed to do anything regularly. And I even have my phone set to go off every Friday evening! Slacker me :) Well, since it's been a while I'll explain all about Send it to God Saturday. Each week (or as often as I can) I'll post my prayer request for the week, and I ask that you post your prayer requests in the comments and I'll pray for you as I read through them, and I'll come back several times in the week to pray as well.

This week, I don't even know where to start. I have a lot of prayer requests. The first one is for me. I've been struggling with some things emotionally lately, but mostly I think a lot of it is just stress and my meds need adjusted. I've been having issues getting in with a psychiatrist due to insurance issues and such, so please pray that I can get in soon and get the meds that I need.

The next prayer is for Eric. Man, I can't even believe I'm typing this. As most of you know, Eric was diagnosed via biopsy with Non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis 4 summers ago, when our sweet baby Dylan was a baby. (he was sweet then, now, notsomuch) At the time he was at stage 1 fibrosis, and we were told that it may not ever get worse, and even if it did, it would be 10 or 15 years before it got to that.

Insert maniacal laugh here.

This past October (I think) he had a second biopsy to check the progression of the disease. Usually biopsies are only done every 5-7 years, so having one just over 3 years later was a bit odd, but I didn't worry too much. I don't think I even remember getting the report on that. I know we did, but I don't think it sank in. That, or Eric got it and didn't tell me everything. Either or. Well this past week he had to have a sleep study, and we just got the report his liver doctor sent to the sleep study place. Oh. My. Goodness.

The first paragraph states that he has biopsy-proven steatosis with steatohepatitis and bridging fibrosis. He has had severe NASH with progressive fibrosis on biopsy since his initial biopsy in 2006.

The first word I saw was "severe". Sigh. And then I looked up "bridging fibrosis", bc I wasn't sure what that meant. I couldn't find much, other than an explanation that read : Fibrosis is scar tissue that forms as a result of persistent inflammation in the liver. If you cut your skin, you form scar tissue which is good. However, if you inflame the liver, you can develop scar tissue or fibrosis which can be bad. If the fibrosis advances, it can start to destroy the liver. Typically fibrosis starts around the portal tract and the mildest form of fibrosis is periportal. As the fibrosis extends, it typically extends kind of like spokes from the center of a wheel. The spokes are called fibrous septae. When the fibrous spokes from one wheel meet with the fibrous spokes form another wheel, they form a bridge and we call that bridging fibrosis. This is often called stage 3 by the Knodell classification of grading liver biopsies. If the fibrosis advances beyond this, we call it cirrhosis or stage 4.