January 18th, 2006

the specialist

Well, we went to the specialist yesterday, and if there’s one thing I can say, it’s that specialists make the world better.

First, his office staff was awesome, and when I started crying because I had lost another 10 pounds (OK, but come on people, 25 pounds in three weeks? WTF?), they were very nice and told me they’d seen lots of yellow people come in here and the doctor always made them better. And he is the best—apparently my dad’s best friend’s connections are phenomenal, because my specialist is the head of liver transplants at this clinic and he’s the foremost hepatologist in his field. So nice. 🙂

Anyway, sadly, they still don’t know what is wrong with me. 🙁 He thinks it’s one of two things: either I am severely allergic to the birth control (either the dye or the estrogen) or I have some sort of viral hepatitis. Either way, we may never know what I have or how I got it. People apparently get random viral hepatitis quite a lot, and very often they can never pinpoint what or why.

Fortunately, my ALTs and my ASTs are dropping (liver enzymes).. in other words, my liver is almost out of the woods, so to speak. However, my bilirubin is still quite high. He said that it might be “lagging” behind the others and it should start dropping soon. (ARGH)

So, I have better drugs now… woohoo… but I’m basically confined to home for two weeks until it drops and I stop itching. (The drugs knock me out, and the jaundice makes me really tired anyway.) I’m to go have blood tests every week for four weeks, then go back and see the specialist. Mind you, he gave me all his numbers, including home and email, and I’m to call whenever I want. 🙂 Nice guy.

That’s the news… not much, but hopefully this means I’ll be getting better soon. I’m still very yellow and itchy, but there’s no quick way out of that.