Friday, February 11, 2005

Treatment: To Get, Or Not To Get!

It seems to me that there’s a common pattern among a lot of Hepatitis C sufferers – and I’m a textbook case! First you find out you’ve got the disease. Then you find out about the treatment (nasty side effects, no guarantee of success) and you vow never to have it. Instead, you decide you’re going manage your disease by living a healthy lifestyle and looking after your liver.
Eventually, however, you find out more about the treatment. You find out that maybe it’s not as bad as you imagined. You realise there’s some hope that it might fix you. And suddenly you’ve joined the ranks of the predictables.
When I got my diagnosis, the first thing I thought of was Pamela Anderson. Since she was so famous (the poor woman), her Hep C story had been all over the news. I’d never heard of Hep C before that, but I had been curious, because she was saying that she only had another ten years to live and other weird stuff (I read later that she had only been joking when she said that – which is weird in itself).
After my own diagnosis, I looked up those Pamela news items again, to see what she had to say about it. One thing that stuck out was that she said she would never have the treatment. Instead, she was going to eat well, look after her liver, etc, etc. You know the scenario.
Anyway, this isn’t a blog about Pamela Anderson, so I’ll move back to ME in a second, but I just want to say that the next time I heard anything about her, it was that she was taking a year off her career to have THE TREATMENT!
So then I was the only person left that I could find who was against treatment.
I complained to my husband that when I searched the Internet for people like me, the only people I found were the ones supporting each other through the treatment. Where were the people supporting each other through living with the disease? The thing is, though, I imagine that if you’ve decided to live with it, you don’t need support after a while because you’d need to put it behind you and get on with living with it.
So I’ll get to my point: Right from the beginning I insisted that I would never, ever let anyone talk me into having the treatment. I was in the doctor’s waiting room, and I was still sure that I wasn’t going to let him talk me into the treatment. When the doctor called my name and I walked into his office, I reminded myself that I wasn’t going to do what I knew he was going to suggest, which was to get the treatment.
By the time I left his office, I was convinced that getting the treatment was a good idea.
And then I started getting comments on my blog, congratulating me on my decision to go ahead with treatment, and I just had to laugh. It was like all these people were out there just waiting for me to make the inevitable decision that they knew I was going to, so they could congratulate me. Of course they weren't, because I'm not the centre of the universe.

I haven't started my treatment yet, but when I do, I'll be one of those people reading new blogs from people vowing never to have the treatment, and I'll wait patiently for them to change their minds, putting no pressure on them, but being there for them when it's time give them congratulations, help and support.

5 Comments:

Blogger Paul said...

Yep!! Textbook case alright.
Prepare well for the journey.
Wish you the best,
Paul

12:38 pm  
Blogger Wendy Kay said...

Hi,
I just found your blog. I was diagnosed 5 years ago and the last thing I thought I would be doing was starting the treatment but, I start in 3 days time. Visit my blog to see how I get on.
http://feelingpositive.blogspot.com
Hope your biopsy goes well.
Wendy

6:51 am  
Blogger Tink said...

Hi Filosofette, I have just been diagnosed and went through exactly the same motions as you! I vowed never to put those horrid toxins into my body and here I am just weeks later - I start my tx on April 4th. I read the HepC blogs as often as I can and I have to say that I am scared - but positive too. It's nice to be able to share my feelings with others.....good luck and hope we can keep in touch.
Trish

9:41 pm  
Blogger Tink said...

Hi Filosofette, how did the biopsy go - hope you are feeling ok. I had mine 2 weeks ago and it wasn't as bad as I expected. Waiting for results was probably the worst bit. Anyway, hope you are ok.
Best wishes
Tink

1:33 am  
Blogger Wendy Kay said...

Hi,
Hope your biopsy went OK
Thinking of you
Wendy

10:38 am  

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