The panic is currently retreating to just being over the biopsy rather than over everything because of the biopsy.

I remember the first time I had a GA - I was scared out of my brain so I avoided thinking about it. I had a friend in the hospital with me when the anaesthetist came so I appeared calm. When they took me to surgery I hyperventilated really badly. I basically paralysed myself I couldn't feel my arms and legs and couldn't move them. I'd gone as stiff as a board. Someone asked me to relax my hand so they could get the drip in - I had to tell them I couldn't feel my hand!

The next time I had a GA (same anaesthetist) I asked for some pre-op sedatives because of my last experience. I remember them asking which knee they were operating on and me suddenly wondering if I'd told them the right knee because I felt so out of it - and then I woke up after the operation. It was much calmer - and meant that the next four times I went under a GA I was completely fine about it - no sedatives needed!

When I think about it - it's probably not going to be terribly different to an ultrasound guided egg retrieval... I've done three of them, but thinking about it in those terms doesn't help because I woke up in horrific pain from each of them and had OHSS every single time, so that just doesn't help!

The locum just said a local anaesthetic. I'm certainly going to make my specialist (when I meet him!) aware of the anxiety issues I have surrounding the biopsy. His rooms are in the Castle Hill day hospital and I'm assuming the biopsy would be done there as well, so I know they have the facilities to do it under sedation (three egg collections under GA in the same hospital!). I'm not even sure I need to be out completely - just that they need to give me something to stop the outright panic I'm feeling!

I guess that for now it's just a case of hoping and praying that they take me seriously about the anxiety - otherwise I don't think I could even turn up to have it done!

Kaz - my liver is a little inflamed but not massively so. I generally only get pain if I eat the wrong foods now but with my last course of antibiotics it was hurting all the time by the end of it... I'm told that it's rare to have pain afterwards - but I've been than unlucky minority just too many times to believe for sure that I won't be in pain!

I think the hardest thing about this is the switch from the locum to the real specialist I haven't met yet - I've got no idea what he's like or anything! Kim, I know it's a long shot, but did you ever work with Dr Don?

BW