Jaundice

Jaundice is a frequent, unexplainable pain in your liver that causes you to turn yellow, though sometimes one may turn other colors such as orange, purple, and black.

Symptoms

• Liver Pain - Self-explanatory: a dull pain in your liver. If it doesn't hurt that bad, but still hurts somewhat, it may not quite be Jaundice. Medical tests often turn up inconclusive on this type of disease, though.

• Yellowing of the Skin - Many doctors agree that this effect is the bladder emptying the opposite way it should (into the body). Some have also said that the yellowing could be the beginning of the body's metamorphosis into a banana. This, of course, is not true, as bananas do not pee into themselves. They do not have any known anatomical structure used in the containment of urine, either. In fact, bananas technically aren't even a living organism.

• Fear of Flying Air Missions in World War II Italy - This too is self-explanatory.

• Uncontrollable Desire to Sign Documents Washington Irving or Irving Washington - Although a rare symptom, this is one of the most serious symptoms of jaundice because, should your name be something other than Washington Irving, you would be committing a felony. Unfortunately, jaundice is not recognized by the U.S. Department of Justice as a legitimate defence for forgery. Thus, a good majority of jaundice patients are jailed at least once in their lifetime. People named Washington Irving or Irving Washington, however, become afflicted with jaundice the moment they are named. As such, people who change their name to Washington Irving or Irving Washington are immediately stricken with jaundice.

• Running off to Sweden - Obviously, this is another self-explanatory symptom. Eventually, if jaundice persists enough, its victim will desert the Army (if they're in the army) and run off to Sweden.

• Stabbed by a Whore - This symptom is disputed, as whores are usually outside factors (unless, of course, the person stricken with jaundice is whore, in which case the person might stab themself). Still, some doctors insist that it is indeed a symptom of jaundice.

For further reference on jaundice's effects, see Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

Causes

Note: part of this section was stolen from Wikipedia. It should be quite obvious which part that is.

There are three different classes of causes for jaundice. Pre-hepatic or hemolytic causes, where too many red blood cells are broken down, hepatic causes where the processing of bilirubin in the liver does not function correctly, and post-hepatic or extrahepatic causes, where the removal of bile is disturbed.

Without any medical nonsense, this means that jaundice is caused by the liver. As such, the most effective treatment for jaundice is the removal of the liver. Unfortunately, all patients who receive such medical treatment die within a few days, which is sadly a higher mortality rate than those who don't. This means jaundice has evolved so that treatment only makes the disease deadlier. Thus, it is advised that, if you happen to get jaundice, you should not seek treatment, no matter how painful the disease becomes.

Half-Jaundice

Although rare, in some cases a person's body will be colored half-yellow and half-normal while feeling a pain in only half of the liver. This condition is known as half-jaundice. Although not quite jaundice, half-jaundice is still classified as jaundice. However, half-jaundice should not be mistaken as not quite jaundice, as half-jaundice is not quite not quite jaundice.

Symptoms

• Pain in Half the Liver

• Yellowing of Half the Skin

• Fear of Flying Air Missions in the Dangerous Half of World War II Italy

• Uncontrollable Desire to Sign Documents Washington or Irving

• Running Halfway to Sweden Without Deserting Completely

• Stabbed by a Nun Who Works Half Time as a Whore (not disputed)

Treatment

Removal of the full liver, as the removal of half of the liver could endanger the patient's life.

See Also

• Disease
• The Simpsons