Saturday, February 12, 2011

Shot #1

Last night my mom picked me up from work. We hit up the store to buy all sorts of goodies and head back to her place. Pretty immediately I decide I want to take my shot, just get it over with. After feeling sick off and on all day I found that walking around the store didn't help either, and made me tire rather quickly.

Once we're back at my Mom's house I ran upstairs to pull out all of my instructions and got ready to get down to business. I went through all of the steps to prepare the shot. After the needle is in, the top of the redipen has to be pulled out in order to "dial" the dose. It wouldn't budge. Mom and I both tried, no luck. We decided we should go back to my house, get another shot, and try again. At this point I've laid the redipen down and start getting ready to go. My Mom grabs the pen to package it back up the best she can and it suddenly starts to leak. She grabs it again and sure enough top pulls up easily (just like it was supposed to). Weird, I don't get it, but thank god! I wanted to freak out so bad when it wasn't working, I allowed myself to stay calm though, yay for progress! After a few minutes of contemplation I finally gave myself the shot. It didn't hurt at all and I seem to have got the full dose in. I immediately fell tired which I'm sure was a direct result of stress finally leaving my body. Woke up this morning and seem to be pretty good. I've been a bit shaky and have had a headache off and on, but all in all not too bad.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Midday update

So far things are pretty good but a little weird. I'm nauseous but that seems to come and go. I have a pretty bad headache and feel a little out of it, but still able to work. Drinking plenty of water, making sure I eat, and remembering to stay in the moment. I think I'll get through work just fine. Then headed to my moms house tonight for my first shot. I'm glad I get to crash there. Even if I don't have any major side effects it'll be nice to have my mom there for support.

**FYI I was NOT at Pizza Hut automatic GPS deal on the Blogger app wouldn't let me change it, ha!**

The day has finally come

I found out I had Hep C back in November 2006. The results came back from a pre-pregnancy screening and guess what? It came back positive. Now this doesn't mean you have HCV, but my doctor wasn't nice enough to explain this to me. (This is actually surprising the more I learn, I'm sure I'll rant about that at a later time). The short version is this: I went to a specialist, tests were ran to confirm I did in fact have Hep C, which we also concluded was contracted via blood transfusion at birth) but he also gave me the impression that insurance was not likely to cover treatment because I was too healthy. I decided to stop pursuing treatment and went about my life.

Fast-forward to November 2010, exactly 4 years later... I go to the doctor for what I figure is just a cold or something that won't go away. The doctor I see at urgent care thinks it could be related to my Hep C and that I should have blood work and ultrasounds done again since it had been about a year. This time I go to a different specialist and he moves me right into action. Now the treatment was approved at the beginning of January and it took until the beginning of Feb to receive my first round of meds, but wow, it's finally here. I should note that the sickness I was feeling was just a bad cold and not related to the Hep C, but I'm sure glad it got the ball rolling in that direction!

For the next 48 weeks: 3 Ribavirin pills in the morning, 2 at night. One shot of Peg-Interferon alfa 2b once a week, I've decided on Friday nights as I have weekends off and there is generally recovery time needed.

I took my first 3 pills at approx. 8:30am, and will take my shot tonight around 9pm as well as the other 2 pills.

I plan to keep this blog updated not only on my treatment process but anything HCV related I might come across and feel the need to share. Awareness is not where it should be and I hope to do my part to change that.

More later, time to finish getting ready for work...