Living Without HepC

I am just realising it is only 6 days since I saw Mynurse and got my end of treatment results. Seems like a while ago now – must have been a busy or full week. Yes, it was.

The news is gradually ‘sinking in’ that I am free of the virus. And this is unexpectedly raising ‘issues’ for me. I can identify feelings of loss and am facing ‘good-byes’ I hadn’t really anticipated.

I am realising I am no longer ‘inside’ treatment – that experience which fairly much encapsulated and defined my existence for the past year. I have not recovered yet but I am not ‘on treatment’ either. It feels a bit like being in ‘no-man’s land’. I have spent the last year focusing on myself and my treatment but now it’s time return to everyday life and focus on other people and things outside me. So it’s time to say good-bye to me as the ‘centre of attention’ - in the way that ill people need to focus first and foremost on their needs and requirements, as do the others around them.

I am also having to say good-bye to my membership of that virtual peer group of ‘people on treatment’ I belonged to within the online HepC community. I have now joined that other group (the carers, the newly diagnosed, those waiting for treatment, those who have finished with treatment). There is a particular bond between people online while they are going through treatment and this is evident in the way they relate to each other. While I can understand the issues, experience and feelings of treatment I am no longer ‘there’ in that place. It’s different. I now will have to find and settle into another role in the other group. Because of my history with this group ‘on treatment’ and its online development, I am feeling this loss quite strongly – and in a way I hadn’t anticipated.

And, of course, it is a big symbolic ‘good-bye’ to the virus. We can all still feel sad at the demise of an enemy.

There are things to celebrate too. Not just the achievement of coping with 48 weeks of harsh treatment and the successful eradication of the virus – but the return to health.

Physically, there are a few things to report. The rash on my face has subsided – quickly enough I didn’t need to see any doctors. It is no longer the source of continual itchiness and peeling scaly skin. My hair has been coming out in handfuls for so very long there can be very little left. The fall-out just might, perhaps, have slowed down and surely the promised new growth of post treatment (curlier and wiry) will soon appear. During treatment, the hair on my arms grew thick and downy; it remains this way and still comprises of long strands happily and softly floating off in all directions. Don’t know about the llama lashes – never could see evidence of that despite the comments from Mynurse and Carol on this.

Appetite hasn’t really changed – over the past year I rarely ever felt hungry and had to keep to a set routine during the day to ensure a healthy intake of food. I wonder if my sense of taste has recently returned. On treatment I experienced the (commonly referred to) metallic taste in my mouth only for a few days at the beginning and then no more; I did think my sense of taste had altered however - most things just tasting bland. Recently, however someone offered me some nuts and seeds containing spices. Couldn’t stand the strong taste. Having heard the warnings about putting weight on after treatment I am surprised to note I have lost 2 pounds this past week.

That may be due to being more active and mobile this week. I did have a rest one afternoon but otherwise have been on the go from morning till at least 11pm most nights (as I work till 10 pm three nights per week). I feel my energy is returning and the brain-fog lifting. Well, for the most part. Just as I think I am getting back to having some wits about me I am suddenly confronted by forgetting the most rudimentary and obvious matter.

Now that it’s safe to tell me, people are sharing how worried they were that I looked so grey in the face during the last few weeks of treatment. And that I was barely able to shuffle about. I was told that my eyes have now got ‘the light back in them’ – at one stage I had a kind of flat glazed look apparently. And throughout, I thought I was just walking around and looking fairly ordinary!

Well, that was this week - wonder what Week 4 will bring?

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 30th, 2005 at 4:52 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.