This is not a story that reflects terrifically well on me. Possibly best left untold. Oh whatever. If you can’t have a laugh at your own expense especially in these dark days well what can you laugh about? I’m hooked on House M.D., episodes of which I watch on Netflix in between reading piles of research on the train home, so I probably am subconsciously on the look-out for rare and exotic health problems. The reality however, though this may surprise you, is that I have always had a touch of the hypochondriac about me. And so…..
On Wednesday I was having lunch with someone in the canteen upstairs. It was quite a serious chat we were having really, but suddenly I noticed that my fingers had turned yellow. I quite forget what we talked about for the next ten minutes so alarmed and distracted was I by this discovery. I hadn’t been eating tangerines, but I have been a bit worried about my circulation and all I knew was that I had to do a bit of Google-diagnosis as quickly as possible. And if you search for “why have my finger tips turned yellow” as I did the moment I got back to my desk, I venture you will be concerned by what you find too. Jaundice is the obvious one, and the note I read suggested if my fingers were yellow I should check other appendages too, but I thought I would spare my desk colleagues that one. In any case I have been feeling OK in myself all things considered so I moved tentatively on. And after much investigation and deliberation I decided, conclusively, it must be Hypercarotenemia.
A seemingly alarming but usually harmless condition is hypercarotenemia, also called carotenemia and carotenodermia. This is a buildup of beta carotene in the tissue and is usually due to eating too much beta-carotene-rich food, such as carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, oranges and spinach. The condition leads to the skin, especially the palms and the soles on the feet, turning a shade somewhere between yellow and orange. Columbia University’s Health Services department reports that eating as little as three 8-inch carrots daily, for an intake of over 20mg of beta carotene, is enough to set off hypercarotenemia.
It fitted. Not just Jimmy, but now Hen too, have become vegetarians and as they have been home recently we have endured an endless diet of sweet blinking potatoes. Furthermore I had had roasted root vegetables for lunch the previous day. So no wonder my body was doing funny things I mused.
I was just about to head down to see my friend “Nursey” – that’s another story – in the clinic when a thought struck me. The night before we had prawn laksa for supper. It was delicious, but Sophie and Lottie both insisted I peeled their prawns. A messy and somewhat painful business given the amount of hot, rich, turmeric infused sauce involved. I probably should have had a finger bowl immediately to hand. Suffice to say, taking a look once more at my yellow stained digits, I conceded ruefully, and with not a little embarrassment, that whilst there are no doubt many things wrong with me, hypercarotenemia was not one of them and that the trip to Nursey had better wait for another occasion.
Talking about unpronounceable names…..I received an email this week informing me of the arrival of a new colleague on the sales desk in Bangkok. I worked with him briefly at CIMB as it happens. His name is Sitichok Tachasirinugune. Obviously, because I used to live in Thailand, I can get my tongue around that little lot after just a few practice sessions, but you will be relieved to know he is generally referred to, apparently, as “Bob”.
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