I was told I had a deadly virus. They called it Hepatitis C and said it was in my liver.
If I didn't get treatment, I could get cirrhosis and maybe even liver cancer.
How did I get it?
Somehow, I got in contact with someone else's blood.
Never had a transfusion so how did I get it?!
Maybe in the Navy--they didn't have much control over spreading things around...
Maybe that time I let a guy shoot me up with Meth...
Maybe sharing a razor or toothbrush...
Maybe that tattoo...
It got to the point that it didn't matter where I got it 'cause I had it and it could kill me.
Got a biopsy. Not very painful at all but I had to stay in the hospital bed for three hours so I wouldn't have internal bleeding.
My liver wasn't "too" bad off, maybe half-way to real bad.
My age and the damage I already had told me I had a 50-50 chance the treatments would work...
Hmmm...
Do the treatment and maybe still have the damn virus?
Don't do the treatment and maybe die?
.........
Do the damn treatment, Alex !
It was Hell !!
Eleven months of Interferon shots (had to give them to myself), Ribavirin pills (very nasty stuff), and Epogen (to help with the anemia from the Ribavirin.
Constant flu symptoms, muscle aches, bone aches, fatigue, nervous system wacked-out, muscles loosing mass, tendencies toward rage, eyesight wacked, skin like a lizard, hair lose, no appetite, dehydrated, and a few other lousy things...
Eleven months of that !!!
So, treatment's been over for almost five months and I feel "almost" "normal".
In two months I get a blood test to see if the virus is really gone...
This is gonna sound pretty weird but I'm glad it happened.
It gave me a chance to seriously consider what death might mean, what my life amounted to, what I "should" be doing...
Wouldn't wish it on anyone but, sad thing is, Hep C is now an epidemic and it's almost worse than Aids...
