No Word Yet

It looks like I'm going to be left hanging for another week for NP to call with start date.

Wheels Are In Motion

NP called me at work today. She asked me if I were ready to start treatment. I indicated I was ready … “I guess” (meaning I’m worn out with it all right now (December 4, 2006-August 25, 2007 and I have waited so long to get this show on the road) . She indicated that I didn’t sound too sure of treating. She told me that I sounded like “a glass half empty” sort of person. This is the second time she has said this to me in a conversation. She said it to me when she called me back in July. I resent it.

I told her I wasn’t thinking that way, I was just worn out from waiting around to hear from someone regarding treatment and waiting around for a date to start treatment.

It’s OK if I feel like I’m losing my nerve.

I just have to get that first shot over with and get the show on the road. There is no turning back then.

The anxiety of all the hoops I have to jump through to sign up for the possibility of making myself sicker before I might better. The uncertainty of even clearing the virus after all the agony and putting my life on hold for possibly two years is even more daunting…and she thinks I sound like “a glass half empty” person.

Things are in motion and it doesn’t look like it’s next week or the next. She told me she has to set up with several other people before I can get to needle day.

Pharmacists
Bureaucracy
Formalities

I also discussed my dislike of the anti-d’s and she asked me to make an appointment with my doc. Nope! I think I’ll come off them. I’ll take one every other day and then two weeks from now reduce to every three days.

On Wellbutrin (I have been on it since July 20) I am experiencing constant tinnitus, agitation, minor aggressiveness, minor impulsiveness, irritable, anxieties (other the Hep C horror anxieties) and dry mouth. I can live with the tinnitus and dry mouth if that were the only sides, but the rest of the sides are not acceptable. I don’t feel like myself. It will be like using the scientific method here trying to find an anti-d that works. The anti-d sides will be compounded with tx sides. Yipee!

I resent being on anti'd's and I figure I’ll have to be on them when I treat because I’m not doing so well since diagnosed. The Hep C diagnosis has put me over the edge because it altered everything I knew about my self to be true. My whole world dropped out from underneath me and I have become disillusioned, bitter and angry. It totally changed my outlook and my sense of well-being. At least I am aware of this change in my life vision and I am going to proactively take the steps to get back to where I was prior to diagnoses. I will have to have some sort of chemical help to take on the treatment as I know I am in trouble.

I am going into tx kicking and screaming having to take anti-d’s, but I know that I will probably need them.

NP Finally Called

I am faltering. I am losing my focus and becoming beaten with the anxiety of this waiting game.

However, when I came home from work there was a voicemail from her for me wondering when I wanted to get this show on the road. Gulp! I called back and, of course, had to leave a voicemail with the assistant. I left my work number, but I am very disappointed that NP didn’t call last week when I was home.

I am aiming at next Friday.

Scared ... it's a lonely decision.

Is It The Middle of August Yet?

Beautiful Champlain Rose

Another Wednesday has come and no date for me to start treatment. It’s pretty bad when the NP assures you that she will call “mid” August and is aiming for the end of August to start treatment. As mentioned before she asked me not to call her. She also assured me that she would call me. It’s creaking past mid August. I came home from work tonight and there is still no notification from her regarding a start date.

I should take out one of the demo needles and practice going through the procedure. Sigh.

Middle of August

I am very discouraged these days as I was sure that the NP would call me as soon as she received my fax last Monday, August 13, with the medical provider’s approval for treatment. I attached a note asking “ NP, How close are we to treatment?” I expect she couldn’t deal with me last week and I was hopeful to hear from her by Wednesday to set up a needle for Friday.

She indicated in the phone call in July that she would call me the third week in August and aim for the end of August for treatment. Last week, according to my calculation, was the middle of August. She told me during the July phone call “Don’t call me I will contact you.” (Yeah, Sure!) Of course, she didn’t contact me and I was hoping to get my first shot August 17. That just jumps it ahead more at the end and I want to get this show on the road to see if I can do this.

Now I am back to work tomorrow following vacation and I won’t be available for NP’s call. Will she call me at work? I can’t discuss this in depth at work. This just added more stress as I had planned not to return to work after vacation so no one would see me look “ok” on a Friday and then have to call in sick the whole next week while I see how I react to the meds. I’ll be taking a major flu that weekend and won’t have the legs under me the next week.

NP said she wants me to take a month off work. I would have liked to have started the treatment during vacation to see how I rally with it. It didn’t work out.

I have to believe that sometimes things happen for the best. I have to believe that when I start it will be the best time for me to start.

It’s a horrible ominous feeling knowing that I will be getting a needle (plus pills) that will make my first night a living hell.

Picture

"You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave"

Well, I have to stop reading the negative things on the forum. It’s like watching a train wreck; I cannot pull myself away from looking at it all transpiring before my eyes. I want to turn away, but I am compelled to look.

I did this last night.

I read the post about the when someone with hep c dies that it is a biohazard situation for the funeral director and the family is faced with major unpleasant dilemma. I am sorry I read it and I never dreamed that it would be such a big deal. It’s not a nice thought that even though I have a glimmer of hope that I will treat the virus and, hopefully, clear the virus I will still be treated as a pariah the rest of my life and, also, in death.

Not doing too well with my anti-d’s. My husband is noticing that I am agitated and provoking conflict. I am ranting. Yikes! I know I am doing and I have to curb this confrontational change in my personality. I am hoping that it will subside as the weeks progress. I am very worried that when I treat the sides that cause aggressiveness and anger will be intensified ten fold. I will speak to NP regarding these sides I am having and see if there is something else I should be taking, although I did check the sides of the other anti-d’s and they aren’t any different.

Today I made the plunge and had my hair coloured to its original colour. Sniff. I was a wreck doing it as I figured it would be too dark for me now. It turned out OK. Now I have to find a safe brown henna to cover the flaws throughout tx.
Sigh!

Landscaping & Update on Medical Provider

Update! I received written approval from my medical provider for treatment today in the mail. I immediately faxed it to my NP. I should be close to starting treatment now. I should hear from her this week.

As soon as I hear from her I’ll practice setting up the needle with the two demo redipens that the drug company starter pack provided.

I am into major landscaping these days. The main thing to do is get the grass planted then look at it for a while and decide what I want to do. I have hired someone to do the plans, but I have not heard from her yet. I spent the weekend with Mr. Bulldozer and Mrs. Excavator. I have to make decisions regarding the previous owner’s mature plantings here. There are only a few that I like; however, I do hate to kill the plants. The landscapers will be back in the middle of the week and I have to have a plan. I am trying to use other people’s bushes because I don’t want to destroy the plants.

The previous owners landscaped with a hand grenade.

I cannot get my head around it and, of course, my husband has no vision and cannot understand why I don’t like the stuff that is currently here.

These people did multiples of everything. Three blue spruce in a straight line across the front of the property. Seven bushes lined up like soldiers in a stip across the front lawn like a barricade. They propagated bushes and have three and four of the same bushes placed all over the lawn. It’s colourless and unimaginative and a mess.

As the scrub trees are removed and the soil is smoothed it’s looking good and taking shape, but looking a bit barren.

I’ll have a winter of tx to sit and look at the designers plans for us and then decide what I want to do by next fall.

Waiting

Waiting.

I waited from December 18, 2006 to January 25, 2007 to get a confirmation that I tested positive for Hep C. I nearly went crazy with the angst and pretty sure that it was a false positive that the insurance company found during a routine test taken early December. The health care system took its good old time to get back to me with the results. It was a real shocker for me and my family. Not a clue where I picked it up along the way in my cloistered life.

Of course, the company refused me the insurance policy that was my first slap in the face regarding the stigma attached to this virus.

Waiting.
I finally get to see a nurse practitioner the middle of April.

Waiting.
Liver biopsy July (excellent, I should add and happy for it)

Waiting.
Treatment

I cannot live within my own skin…I should try and treat to see if I can exterminate the virus.

What a long drawn out process and my patience is wearing thin. I expect the waiting will be much longer while I try to treat. 48 weeks.

I am an emotional wreck over all this along with being angry and bitter as hell. I hope that this anger will subside. I resent the fact that I was busy going along with my own life and had overcome and endured other crap only to get gut punched with this heinous virus.

I’m hiding and fearful that people will discover that I have Hep C.

This evening finally took the wrapping off the DVD supplied by the drug company to teach how to use the redipen. I have had the kit for weeks and I have been hesitant to look at that DVD. Well, I did tonight and it scares the hell out of me.