Had the fifth shot of Interferon today and finished the first months supply of ribavirin, thats a whole 168 tablets!

A blog like this can be a little deceiving, certainly in my case I tend to post only when I feel OKish, hence you will see that the posts tend to come in bursts. Well tonight is a little different, its about 10 hours after the Interferon injection and about an hour after the second slug of the ribavirin. Its difficult to say how I feel without swearing, lets just settle on roooough!

Don’t get me wrong, its not the end of the world but a combination of the injection, the build up of the riba in your system over the last few weeks, the lack of sleep the night before and now toothache has a tendency to pull you down somewhat

The other strange thing is that almost as I am pushing the plunger of the syringe in I can feel myself drying out. I’m normally a pretty greasy guy, make Jermaine Jackson look normal, but I could get away with not washing my hair all week when before it was at least once a day to prevent the chip pan look.

Been struggling a little with the riba rage today also, sparked off earlier when I parked my car for the hospital appointment. The stress involved in parking at the hospital itself is more than a boy can take so I found a nearby pub car park and park and walk. As I got out the car today some pikey looking geezer in the car wash next door threw me a look, like it was his car park. Its amazing what can be communicated in a split second via non-verbal means with just a look of my eyes, suffice to say he looked away pretty quick. If not, and I’m not a betting man, I’d have put money on him joining me at the hospital.

Lets just say I have kept out the way of everybody since then

Got my bloods from last week, ALT down to 83, which ain’t bad but hemoglobin down to 14.2 from 16.7 over 3 weeks of ribavirin. That may well be normal and I’ll try and find that out but looking at the downward curve of they graph don’t make a man feel good. There are medications that can help if the hg falls real low [less than 10 I think is real low?] but I don’t think its standard with my people, I think they look to reduce the riba dosage. Now I’ll wait and see but as it is now ain’t nobody going to reduce my dosage, I’m in it to win it not for the enjoyment of the challenge. I’m sure that budget plays a big part in the decisions and for example procrit [which seems to be the drug of choice of our American comrades] is very expensive, very. We shall see, lets just hope that the hg level stays the right side.

Having said all that and had a bit of a whine I’d much rather take this than sit around letting that virus just chip away at my liver.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, only going to be one winner in this game and its not going to be Mr Dying in Agony Hep C Virus.

Keep the faith - Kill the virus

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