One day in 1995, my sister, Jules, felt a bit sick -- pain in her abdomen -- and was a bit jaundice (yellow-tinted).

After a lot of tests, and far too much waiting, she was diagnosed as having Auto-Immune Hepatitis.

What is this, you say? Well, so did we. The doctors told us little information, for little information is known about it. It is a rare disease, one that has not been studied much. In fact, when we eventually contacted the National Organization for Rare Disorders, we found out that they had no prepared document on it, and could only point us to some medical journal articles.

It is important to know that it is not related to what are commonly called "hepatitis" -- Hepatitis A, B, C. These are afflictions which affect the liver directly, whereas auto-immune hepititis is a problem with the immune system, which in turn affects the liver.

Auto-immune hepititis is so recently recognized that it is still called by different names. Apparently it is often mis-diagnosed. Curiously, about 70% of the cases seem to be in young females. My sister was 23 when she was diagnosed with it.

No one seems to know the cause of the disease, but something in the body causes the immune system to turn against the liver, eventually destroying it. Apparently, similar disorders affect other organs -- such as the immune system destroying the thyroid gland. However, the liver is a very important organ in the body, and when it starts having problems, many things go wrong.

While it is considered a "treatable chronic condition", we were about to enter a world where treatments came with side-effects, and a crippled liver caused problem after problem.

See "Recent History" for some of the treatments and an idea of what life is like with auto-immune hepatitis.

Soon: web sites, links, discussions?