At least it’s not rising, that’s what I keep telling myself.

My AST dropped to within normal range and my albumen is very high (which means, THANK GOD, I can stop eating bacon)… but my ALT is still high and the bili’s at a 3.8 (normal is .2 to 1). Argh.

I know I should be thankful that it’s dropping, and I am, don’t get me wrong… but I had hoped this would be my first week of normal labs. Two straight weeks of normal and we get to talk about me going home… the insider misses home.

And vodka.

He cooks breakfast (good).
He gives me meds (eh, hard to say).
He plays with my cats (very cute).
He won’t let me drink any liquor (bad). Granted, I have a liver problem, but I’m back living at my parent’s house (for the time being) and a girl needs a drink. Somebody get the GIRL a drink.

Reason I’m telling you this: he used my bathroom and forgot to a) put the toilet seat down and b) flush. Eww.

Oh, the joys of living at home.

BTW, Bad News Hughes updated. It’s hysterical, of course.

Well my blood test results came in and I’m at an 8.8. Eh. We thought I’d be at a 4 by now. I can deal with an 8.

But… my ALT and AST (liver enzymes that say how healthy your liver is) are elevated again and my albumin (which says how much protein/food/bacon I’m getting) has dropped again. Bugger.

I’m less itchy and I’m off all the meds that made me wacky (like forgetting entire days I’ve lived in the past two months), and I’m really hoping that everything drops back to normal by next week.

Or they might make me get a liver biopsy. Argh.

The first set of results can in this morning, and my dad said “no way these are the numbers,” so they ran them again. Three times. And the numbers are? 18. 19. and 20. According to this lab, I dropped 11 or so points in a week… which is relatively unheard of.

And my albumen jumped to 3.6, from 2.8, another jump that has all the doctors stumped and surprised, and me ecstatic. If it continues to drop at this rate, I could be at a 9 by next week. WooHoo!

I’m less itchy, but I’m told I look the same—it’s a shade issue I suppose.

My dad had them run the tests several times, and tomorrow he wants the sample sent to the lab back home, to see what they come up with… see, to test for bilirubin in blood, they have to use a spectrometer test—i.e., shining light through the serum tail of the blood. Mine was so dark orange/yellow that they diluted it to get a better sample. And they were doing that back home as well, but the docs want to make sure all the machines give the same answer before giving me a definitive number.

For now, 19 and dropping. 🙂 That’s what I’m going with. And I’m ecstatic.

We’ll find out tomorrow the definites, but for now… we party. 🙂

So basically I want to kill myself. The flights yesterday were agony, especially after we learned that the bili is up to 29.7.

It appears I’m hitting record numbers for this. My dad is looking into a new way of treating jaundice, but it’s a) not really for jaundice (it just cleans my blood… eight hours hooked up to a huge IV pulsing from my neck) and b) is only approved for testing in the US….. so Austria or Toronto is the thought.

Maybe.

Short update. My parents got here last night, so now I’ve an IV in one arm that I have to keep straight. My dad is out getting some needed supplies and my mom is on the phone with the airlines trying to book flights for my cats.

My dad explained last night that there is a very real possibility that I won’t get better for 6-12 months. And the truth of the matter is that I can’t take care of myself at all. So I’m going home.

We leave Tuesday. I’ll keep you all updated. Thanks for the well wishes, etc.

So it did go down .3 this week. I’m trying desperately hard to scream and jump out my window… sadly it’s only the second floor, and it won’t kill me.

The specialist had said it could go down a point a day, but apparently my body said “Fuck it, we like being yellow.”

My parents are coming in tomorrow and my dad’s bringing an IV to hook me up to fluids. My mom wants me to go home with them. The prospect of any form of travel.. especially travel that will take 8 hours.. makes we want to hurl. Last week I was adamantly against it. Last week I also thought the bili was going down.

And the stupid albumen level? The one that said I needed more protein? Dropped another .5. After all that damn chicken I ate, it dropped. (It was supposed to go up .5.)

My desire to live has now dwindled to nil.

OK, so I’m basically still alive because I’m heavily medicated. I have three bottles of pills next to my bed and I take ’em all.. and I’m still, as the coworker put it, miserable.

But I’m having incredibly hysterical dreams—we’re talking doozies here people.

The best one was earlier today. I had a dream about some sort of political dinner that the president was at. His wife was speaking and at the end she said something about this being a lame duck year for the president… or will it be? “C’mon y’all,” she said, “Never say never or give up?”

Bill Clinton was on the one dais (there were two) where she was speaking and before anyone could say anything he said, “Well never say never but…” and then a bunch of gobbledy-gook about healthcare and education (i.e., I don’t remember, but it was profound).

Across the table from him Owen Wilson (no idea where he figures in) interjected to explain what Clinton was saying. Most of the audience then started nodding, but on the other dais, which was across the room, the president had a confused smile on his face.

Luke Wilson nudged Owen and said, “Now you need to explain it to their leader.” It was silent, but you could see people wanted to laugh.

Then I woke up laughing my ass off.

I also had a dream where I challenged Winston Churchill to a drinking competition (I appear to be stupid in my dreams…) and one where my sister and I were acrobats on a ferris wheel.

Ahhh the drugs.

No real update, just wanted to say hi and that I’m still alive.. kinda.

And I’m eating chicken. Lots and lots of chicken. I had forgotten how much I really don’t like the chicken. Sigh. My lab results apparently also said that my protein levels were way too low and they wanted me eating lots of protein.

There are problems with this: a) I’m not eating much of anything and b) what I normally eat for protein (vegetarian over here).. well, the thought revolts me. Fish? Gag. Tofu? Gag. Beans? Gag. Because of the massive amount of bile in my tissues (nice to say out loud, isn’t it? ;P), most foods, unless they are very bland, sound, smell and taste gross. Hence the not eating.

The other problem is that I’m homebound and don’t have giant stores of groceries and protein things lying about.

Enter, the coworker, who not only went grocery shopping for me (buying lots of chicken products), she came and made soup, stripped a rotisserie chicken for sandwiches and hardboiled some eggs. The coworker is a saint. 🙂

Hopefully by next week my lab results will say “oo, she’s eating her protein,” because damn am I eating protein. Chicken soup, chicken salad, chicken sandwiches… I miss my vegetarianism.

And I’m sick of chicken.

So my bilirubin went down… by .freaking3 or so. Apparently last week it was at 24.7, but no one noticed the typo. So maybe it went down by 1.1, but still… that’s nothing.

Everyone has reassured me that the reason the weekend was so bad (holy mother of drugs) was probably because the bili peaked—their guess? Somewhere around 32-34—and now it’s starting it’s decline. I can only hope and pray that it will decline swiftly… and not 1.1 a week. Then I will die.

I was just reminded that my mom’s birthday is in a couple of weeks, so now I must start shopping. Oy.