No, It Came Out Looking Like That

As I continued my quest to receive a diagnosis, I became a little too interested in my pee color. I started to research more about porphyria and triggers for attacks and began to live like a porph. By doing this, my overall health started to improve. Now I don't want to give the wrong impression, I was still struggling, but the daily dry-heaving, extreme headaches, diarrhea, and abdominal pain slowly got better and I was able to eventually stop taking muscle relaxers and hydrocodone every day.

With this overall change, I started to second-guess my symptoms. I attribute this to the "forgetting pain" phenomenon associated with child birth. I think this also must occur with patients suffering with chronic diseases that include cycles of pain. When the pain is over, and you begin to feel better, your mind starts to think that maybe the pain you were in wasn't so bad after all....until the pain monster rears it's ugly head once again and you curse yourself for ever thinking this situation was bearable.

So to see if I was really sick... and maybe to confirm my first sunlight test, as if the positive results could have been a strange fluke....I decided to do another. This one, however, came out of me looking like it was already out in the sun. So I took my jar of pee, put my name on it, and took it to Dr. Premier, figuring he would like to see it in person.

{March 29, 2010}

Dr. Premier didn't know what to think about this...I don't think most people would. He took the jar and asked how long it had been exposed to light (only 30 minutes or so by the time I drove it to his office) and he said that he would try and run a general porph screen on it and see what comes up. So I left, feeling like I was getting somewhere, and waited to hopefully hear that my levels were elevated and I would become an official porph.