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More News from the HCV Front

It's early and I am about to start my day.

So far life has been pretty mellow compared to the hell I have endured over the past month or so. My wife and I seem to have settled into a comfortable life together. She has started attending therapy at Kaiser and in general recognized the fact that she needs therapy. This is a huge step forward for her and bodes well for our relationship.

On the other hand, Hepatitis C continues to overshadow our life. My wife found out that her viral count is one million. She has genome type 1B which is less dangerous than 1A which is what I have. Nevertheless, she needs to go on the therapy to cure or at least get it under control. She's understandably worried about it, as am I, and is making plans for how she will deal with her life while she is in treatment.

This problem is further complicated by the fact that I need to go back on the therapy this autumn. My viral count is slowly rising. It was around 1000 when I stopped the treatment in March and has now already risen to one million in two months. I must go back on treatment.

Because of the side effects of Interferon we both need to coordinate our treatments. My wife is considering starting as soon as possible while I will start in late autumn. This will hopefully minimize the amount of time we are both in treatment.

Interferon makes a person weak and irritable and depressed. I'm espicially worried about the last effect when it comes to my wife. She is depressive/reactive and already prone to depressions. Hopefully the drugs she takes for depression will also handle the added load from the Interferon.

There's a type of therapy that uses bocevir instead of victrelis for the treatment of hepatitis. The former does not cause anemia. This is especially good news for me. It was the dangerously low red blood cell count I got during the last treatment that forced me to go off of it. We will both use bocevir this time around, even though we suspect that my wife is not prone to anemia as am I.

So my wife is now busy preparing for hepatitis treatment. She's researching support groups and has joined a mutual support chat. I admire the way she attacks problems in this way. I tend to be rather lazy about such things. I guess I will probably get involved, too, as things take their course.


Comments

  1. That was a sweet entry.
    To admire your wife for the way she attacks problems,that sounds like love.

    ReplyDelete

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