Launching:
May 30th
Important Medical Disclaimer: I am Angie, from @diagnosis_cirrhosis on TikTok. I am a cirrhosis patient sharing my personal lifestyle, nutrition, and mindset journey. I am a data aggregator and community builder, not a licensed medical professional, doctor, or dietitian. Content on diagnosiscirrhosis.com is based solely on my personal experience living with advanced liver disease and is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute medical advice or a substitute for professional medical care. Always follow the recommendations of your own healthcare team and consult your hepatologist or physician before changing your diet, medication, or lifestyle routine.
Newly
Diagnosed
Important Medical Disclaimer: I am Angie, from @diagnosis_cirrhosis on TikTok. I am a cirrhosis patient
sharing my personal lifestyle, nutrition, and mindset journey. I am a data aggregator and community builder,
not a licensed medical professional, doctor, or dietitian. Content on diagnosiscirrhosis.com is based solely on my
purposes only. It does not constitute medical advice or a substitute for professional medical care. Always follow
personal experience living with advanced liver disease and is intended for informational and educational
the recommendations of your own healthcare team and consult your hepatologist or physician before changing your diet, medication, or lifestyle routine.
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The Club that No One Wants to Be In
Welcome to Liver Disease
Getting diagnosed with liver disease feels a little like being dropped into the middle of a movie that everyone else has apparently been watching for years.
Suddenly people are talking about MELD scores, portal hypertension, varices, ascites, sodium, ammonia, endoscopies, as if you're supposed to know what any of it means. Meanwhile, you're still trying to process the fact that you have liver disease in the first place.
This section is designed to help you understand what comes next. Not every answer. Not every complication. Not every possible scenario. Just the things most of us wish someone had explained sooner.
Getting diagnosed with liver disease feels a little like being dropped into the middle of a movie that everyone else has apparently been watching for years.
Suddenly people are talking about MELD scores, portal hypertension, varices, ascites, sodium, ammonia, endoscopies, as if you're supposed to know what any of it means. Meanwhile, you're still trying to process the fact that you have liver disease in the first place.
This section is designed to help you understand what comes next. Not every answer. Not every complication. Not every possible scenario. Just the things most of us wish someone had explained sooner.
aka the Club No-one Wants to Be In
Welcome to
Consider this the Welcome Manual. Take what you need, ignore what doesn't apply yet, and remember that you don't have to figure out the rest of your life this moment.
“The Welcome Manual”
Explore My Version of
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When I was First Diagnosed
This is the first picture I have of myself after diagnosis.
Cirrhosis. It was real now.
People were saying it. Treating it. Measuring it. Walking in and out like this was officially my life.
And there I was with my laptop open.
Because some part of me believed that a woman with a MELD in the high 20s, should probably stay on top of staff meetings.
I took the picture for my team. and this was my little hospital-bed wave. My proof of life. My attempt to say, See? I’m okay.
Except looking at it now, I can see what I could not see then.
I was not okay.
I was sick, swollen, scared, l trying to prove I was fine because I had not learned yet that fine can be a Freudian slip-slash-synonym for shock.
And every time I look at her, I want to crawl through the computer and sit beside her.
I want to take the laptop away.
I want to wrap my arms around her. Not because I can fix it.
Because I finally understand what she did not.
She does not have to make everyone else comfortable with her fear. She does not have to keep reaching for normal like normal is still waiting right outside the door.
I want to tell her: You are not okay. Of course you are not okay.
Today I am okay.
Not magically healed. Not untouched. Not out of the woods. Okay in a truer way.
Okay because I know more now. Because I stopped mistaking motion for safety. Because I survived enough days to look back at her with tenderness instead of panic.
Because I can finally see that she was not weak... She was just at the beginning.
Okay wasn’t Built in a Day
And maybe that is why that picture belongs here.
Because if you are newly diagnosed, you may be somewhere very close to this version of me right now.
Maybe there is no hospital bed.
Maybe there is no laptop.
Maybe you are at home, in the car, or sitting in a parking lot after an appointment with your whole life suddenly speaking a language you do not understand.
Because maybe you are doing the same impossible math.
Trying to sound calm while you are terrified.
Trying to reassure everyone else while you are barely holding onto yourself.
Trying to function while words like cirrhosis, MELD, ascites, varices, HE, and portal hypertension move into your life like they have always lived there.
Maybe you are saying, I’m okay, because you do not know what else to say yet.
So let this be me waving to you from both sides of that picture.
From the hospital bed, where I was not okay.
And from here, where I mostly am.
It is okay to be scared.
It is okay if none of this feels real yet.
It is okay if you cannot understand the rest of your life today.
You do not have to prove you are calm.
You do not have to become fluent in cirrhosis before you are allowed to settle into all of it.
You just have to start.
@diagnosis_cirrhosis Was hesitant to post, did not anticipate the intermission of tears. 😔 And this is not meant to bash doctors. Just want everyone to feel seen and not alone if any of this is your story too 💔🥺💚 #autoimmunedisorder #autoimmunehepatitis #liver #liverhealth #cirrhosis ♬ original sound - diagnosis cirrhosis