Tim Larson, son of Eldon and Sharyl Larson, Fulda, received a life-saving liver transplant on March 2nd. The transplant was necessary due to Tim’s diagnosis of Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis (PSC), which is a chronic, progressive fatal liver disease. There is no cure for the disease other than a transplant.
“I had high liver proteins noticed during a blood test in 2012. We were actually checking for something unrelated to liver disease. My numbers were on the high end of normal,” Larson explained. “When I would have routine checkups for other things, the liver numbers seemed to keep climbing, so I had a biopsy done. The tests were inconclusive, so I tended to ignore it until about 2015 when I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. That’s when the light bulb went off that this could explain the liver enzymes, because they co-exist with Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis.”
Larson said that ulcerative colitis and PSC are usually diagnosed first one and then the other. “They told me that people live with PSC for years and years, and that I could possibly need a transplant down the road. I wasn’t too worried about it. The doctors did put me on medicine at that time to help the bile flow better. That is what PSC does – it closes up the bile ducts and the liver can’t process out what it is supposed to.”
Larson said that all seemed to be going pretty well until the winter of 2018. That is when he noticed that he was feeling itchy all of the time, but he chalked it down to winter dryness.
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