My Third Day
Wednesday, 27 August 1997

JAUNDICE!

I woke up today and noted that I had lost my beautiful reddish-brown skin color. Sure enough I had jaundice.

Nobody got too excited though. Just about all my mates get jaundice when they're 3 or 4 days old. What happens is this pigment called bilirubin forms and that gives me the yellow coloring. Bilirubin forms when the old red blood cells break down. Normally my liver would get rid of the bilirubin, but I'm such a young lad that my liver can't quite cope with it.

So basically they treat me under 'phototherapy lights'. They strip me down bare naked and put a mask over my eyes.

When they turned those bright lights on I made an amazing discovery ...