Jaundice story

Dear All,

As the only one in our family who can bear the traditional American round-robin Christmas letter, I thought I would take this opportunity to send one of my own, to say thanks for all your concern and support and to give you a summary of what has been happening, and I promise I won’t be trumpeting anybody’s GCSE results!

In Friday the 22nd, I just finished a gruelling 6 days of group relations work….probably not a great idea, but there you go. Next morning Jane and I were doing our Christmas shopping in Witney and she noticed I had turned yellow, so we went to the local clinic that had a look and said I should go straight to the John Radcliffe in Oxford. Off we went to their assessment unit to discover the cause of the jaundice. And I have been at the hospital ever since, except for two days off to go home for Christmas. They arranged a sequence of 4 assessment ‘procedures’….Ultra sound….MRI….Endoscopy (camera down the gullet) …and CT scan. Because of holiday staffing and recovery times , these have taken some time. Things were OK till I had the endoscopy when they also inserted a small tube in the bile duct to drain the bile through the system. I had a violent, reaction to this that led to pancreatitis….and this has been no fun. Put on an immediate starvation diet, that means I couldn’t eat or drink for three days, and the nausea like pain was all consuming, 24 hours a day. I felt too preoccupied with the pain to eat, read, watch telly, or have much of a conversation.

They sent me home with pain killers, yesterday and I now have a few periods where I can sit up and drink soup. But this seems like a very slow process to me who has never been in hospital and brings up all my impatience and fear of not having some control of my life. A lot to think about….eventually.

Still, there is no diagnosis. Most likely a blocked bile duct but they don’t know why. Monday is a big consultants’ case conference to look at all the results, so we’ll hope there is more news then. So I feel like I am at the end of chapter one, but have no idea how much longer this will go on. The consultant has given me a 4 week ‘sick note’ but I will play it one week at a time and keep people informed.

As you all know, I get a bit embarrassed if too much attention sneaks up on me, but I do want to say how I have been very touched by the concern that is circulating amongst you, and back to me and Jane. It is surprisingly easy to retreat into feeling sorry for oneself in these circumstances.

Also I am happy for you to pass any of this information on to colleagues who might be interested.

I’ll be in touch,

Love,
David (and Jane)