Friday, February 15, 2008

I'm just mad about Saffron (Saffron's mad about me).

I was at work on Valentine's day, chit chatting in the graphics department while the nice folks there went out of their way to help me with a (for me) demanding project, when one of the designers told me that I looked yellow.

I looked at my arm suspiciously. I check for yellowness with some frequency as my liver is (as my oncologist put it) "going sour" and as he's stated on several occasions "when your liver goes you're up a creek."

I told the designer it was just the light. She looked up and pronounced the light blue. Doggone designers and their finely calibrated color instruments. Bah!

Still, if I was yellow, I was barely yellow. I thought I could even be tricking myself into seeing yellow.

I had an appointment to have blood drawn from my port for tests that afternoon. Was there ever a finer Valentine tradition? The chemo nurse gazed into my eyes and pronounced me yellow, and I figured that was that. Jaundice it was, and this time I'm not just talking about my attitude. All that was left was the waiting, and my hyper-efficient HMO emailed me within two hours.

Bilirubin is a brownish yellow substance found in bile. It's produced when the liver breaks down old red blood cells. When bilirubin levels are high, the skin and whites of the eyes may appear yellow, or jaundiced. In cancer patients with liver tumors, jaundice can be caused by liver failure or a blocked bile duct.

My bilirbubin levels had always been within a normal range, meaning .3 or .4 or .5. My blood test came back as 5.1 -- a high level of toxicity.

At that point I figured myself "up a creek". I emailed my doctor, who responded very quickly, and he seemed to agree. He didn't disagree, anyway, and asked to see me the next morning.

Which brings me to today.

To make a long story shortish... I may not be up a creek just yet. I'm certainly yellow... more yellowed than yesterday, for sure... but it may not be because of disease progression but instead a nasty side effect of my current (now former) chemo regimen.

Now there's just waiting and seeing. Eric and I left town this afternoon. As much as I love our home, I needed to see something different. As sick as I feel, I'm glad we did.

For a bit & a while I figured myself for dead in a month or two. That seemed like a realistic timeframe. I wasn't anxious or scared, but I was sad.

But for now I'm feeling optimistic. I think there's more time than that... I think this isn't a worst case scenario.

No guarantees, of course. I was going to say "for any of us, ever", but that's not true. I feel 100% certain of Eric and his goodness. That's what I'm guaranteed, and I'll take it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

where have you and eric gone? is there any snow? we're going to find some snow today.