doctor Doom

Thursday's blood draw showed a significant downturn in my transaminases-- the first  since they started going up around the time of my re-admission. This positive news was  dampened my meeting with Dr. "Doom" Y. who described in detail the course of events if I ran into trouble with hep-C. (She did not mention that numbers coming down was a good sign.) The treatment was very hard to take and only worked some of the time.  If hep-C progressed to sclerosing cholangitis I would "loose the graft". Darn, where did I put that thing? I set it down somewhere and now I cannot find it. How clumsy of me! Yes, my fault.  Would I, I humbly inquired, be a candidate for a fifth transplant? Well, graft loss to hep-C in the first year is a contraindication. Plus,  we would never do a fifth. We practically never do a fourth because it is so difficult. So what she meant by "loss of graft" was "you are going to die";  and not, I may add, in a very pleasant way.  She was cold-blooded enough to spell out the hep-C worst case scenario, but not straightforward enough to state the conclusion.  When I met with her pre-transplant back in September, she voiced the same sentiment about the difficulties of a fourth transplant. I think she voted against putting me on the transplant list. Has she bet against me in the Mayo office pool? What to do now? Wait and see.

It has been hard to keep my spirits up.  I will be biting my nails on Tuesday awaiting the results of my next blood test.  I have a picture in my mind of Caesar  in one of those old black and white movies, standing above the crowd at the forum, arm stretched straight out with thumb held horizontal-- thumb up or thumb down? Meanwhile, the drain tube irritates me just enough so I cannot forget it is there.  They will decide Wednesday on whether to pull it or re-position it.