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Holidays. Weddings. Anniversaries. Special Occasions. These are often the most joyous moments of our life. But liver disease can make it difficult to fully participate.

My daughter, Elise, was born in October 2011 with the rare pediatric liver disease, Biliary Atresia. We were told that she would likely require a liver transplant by age 2 in order to survive.

I was diagnosed with PBC. My symptoms other than fatigue were non existent. At that time I started having bleeding from esophageal varices, that however was just outpatient and manageable.

To help you understand how to eat if you have PBC, we consulted Megan Gutierrez, Advanced Dietitian who has extensive experience providing nutrition counseling to people with PBC.

For every liver transplant, there are two stories. The story of the donor and the story of the recipient. Sometimes—not often—there is a third story.

Do you realize that your liver is depending on you? It’s true. Even though you can’t see it hidden away under your rib cage, if your liver could speak to you, it would say: “I’m working hard…"

“PBC can be a lonely disease, as most people don’t understand it,” wrote a member of the American Liver Foundation’s Facebook group.

I went into surgery at about 225 lbs. and when I got home after rehabilitation I weighed 138 lbs. I worked with in home physical therapist and eventually start slowly going back to a health club.

My name is Carolyn Evans and I was diagnosed with Primary Biliary Cholangitis (PBC) in 1992.

Biliary atresia is a disease of the bile ducts that affects only infants. It is rare, affecting about one out of every 18,000 infants.

I was diagnosed with PBC at the age of 43. I suspect that I had it long before that as I had already been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and had been told I had high liver enzymes.

Liver cancer strikes 33,000 Americans annually, according to the American Cancer Society and it is expected that 23,000 Americans will die as a result of liver cancer this year.