Living Without HepC

The sun is shining and the skies are clear. The air is a bit cool but the feel of the sun is good. Taking some time in the garden I see that the trees are budding and the fruit trees are blooming, as well as the bluebells and broom. And, before I and Sox the cat next door disturbed them, there were greenfinches, robins and blue tits feeding at the seed containers hanging in the pear tree. Great!

I have been trying to pace myself better over the past few days. I worked four days in a row and but have not tried to do much else on top - such as reading or writing blogs - so I am out of touch with the other HepC bloggers at the moment. Planning to visit around shortly. I also haven’t answered emails - several of which are asking technical/ medical questions beyond my knowledge or expertise, so that should be interesting.

It is so hard on this treatment to find my balance or equilibrium - and then to maintain it. As so many others have said, and probably me too but I forget, lots of little things can throw me - it takes several days to recover from staying up late one night, I can become witless or fogged up very easily.

But today it’s sunny and it all feels ok.

I met up with counsellor colleagues whom I trained with for a sort of ‘reunion’ lunch today. It was good to see everyone and hear their news. I really enjoyed it. The experience of eating in that sort of restaurant (a high street ‘chain’) was an eye-opener for me.

How I have changed my attitudes and views on food! I had a Caesar’s salad as it seemed the ‘cleanest’ food on the menu – although I did pick around the croutons and imitation parmesan cheese. When everyone was ‘oohing’ and ‘aahing’ over the chocolate fudge sundae with whipped cream and maltesers, I could only see a large glass containing a bit of milk powder, cocoa powder and masses of whipped-up hydrogenated oils, fats, sugars, artificial colourings, preservatives and flavourings. I wouldn’t eat a helping of that!

These are things I know my liver has trouble metabolising – and probably exports as toxins to somewhere else in my body as it can’t deal with them. Because I have HepC and I am on treatment I am committed to making life as easy for my liver as I can – so I won’t eat like this anymore. (Well except my Danish pastries – I am not perfect!) But I do wonder about the effects of so much of all these additives, hydrogenated oils, etc on the rest of the people in that restaurant - and in our society generally! It must be taking a toll on their livers too. Just because people don’t have a diagnosed problem with their livers they don’t think about the effects on their bodies – but their livers are also chucking out these chemicals into their bodies too.

But I won’t go on about the health of the nation. The point here is that this is another example of a change in my life due to HepC - and that change becoming a permanent alteration to my lifestyle for good. I am grateful that I have had this experience which has led me to pay attention to my diet and to think about my long-term health. I know I won’t stop watching what I eat just because I finish treatment (and no longer have the HepC virus!!!).

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 17th, 2005 at 8:20 pm and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.