Watching the miles tick over

As of this past Friday the countdown is Thirteen Weeks. I found that my prescription plan charges me on a per-prescription basis -- it doesn't matter whether it's a 30-day supply or 90 days. Wish I'd known that earlier. In any case, I received the last three boxes. The unopened boxes are numbered 37-40, 41-44, and 45-48. There is one syringe left in the open box. The end of this business is in sight. On the road to the town where I grew up, there was once a sign that said it was nine miles away. I remember passing that sign and it seemed that the last nine miles was half the trip.

My job has gone nuts. I clocked 50 hours last week and the week before. Between making up for the absence, looming deadlines, and the disturbing realization that the product that was sold is not deliverable without huge changes, the project is getting exciting. Exciting projects are like exciting plane rides. Boredom is much better. I've let the overall project manager know that I'd rather not travel unless there is something very specific to be done that only I can do and only in the faraway city which would justify burning two days worth of travel. In other words, I don't want to travel. At this point, there's little reason for me to climb onto a plane.

I've gone back to the Friday night Interferon schedule. I thought about taking the shot earlier in the day, but couldn't bring myself to mess up a perfectly decent Friday afternoon. This Saturday and last I was able to accomplish a bit -- worked on the car, put up some shelves in Son's room, even a bit of electrical work installing a new outlet (the shelves cover up the old one). But today and last Sunday both I've been moving pretty slow. I had my suspicions, and I found out why on my trip to the doc last Thursday. My hemoglobin count is down again -- around 9.1. I knew it would be low. I can feel it. But, as the doc points out, I'm tolerating the anemia and I'm in the home stretch. No talk of dose reduction.

My friend Bob who went through treatment some five years ago asked me to call another friend of his. Larry finished treatment last year and relapsed. I had mentioned the possibility that statins (anti-cholesterol drugs) might be an alternative. But that's still on the horizon. It turns out he was taking only 1000 miligrams (I'm taking 1200 mg) of ribavirin. When he started breaking out with a skin rash, his doctor reduced the dosage even further. He got himself into Mayo and the liver specialist there said he'd have had him on 1200 mg. daily, and he'd have sent him to a dermatologist for the skin rash. The sides we treat symptomatically; the object is to stay on treatment.

Naturally Larry is weighing options. Treat again? He's over 55. The Mayo doc says he has a 30% chance of developing cirrhosis in 20 years. He has moderate liver damage, this after, in his words, "drowning" his liver in beer for years. He's a construction worker and, again in his words, "That's what construction workers do." He's now a non-drinker. Can his immune system hold the infection off? Or as he gets older will the virus start to move faster?

I had to interrupt our conversation to take a work call, but I'm going to check in with him again. One thing that I'm concerned about is that you can't always count on a disease to give you a nice long linear slide. I remember when my father fought colon cancer he was in decent shape and suddenly took a bad turn. He was dead in a couple of weeks.

I recall when 55 seemed like a terribly advanced age. Now it's only a few years down the road. This mortality thing is really annoying.

Energy and persistence conquer all things.
— Benjamin Franklin

Back Home -- Chaos, Sweet Chaos

But first, the countdown. I've done two Interferon shots -- Number Thirty-two last Saturday; I stalled Friday night and ended up doing it Saturday morning. And I just opened Box Number Nine and took Shot Number Thirty-three. Fifteen to go. Fifteen.

I got an early flight out of Denver last Friday. Well worth the extra $25. The trip to the airport was far easier than Monday's trip away from it.

The weekend was a blur. All three kids went to a church-sponsored lock-in at a place with about everything a kid could want to do -- rock climbing, go-karts, video games, etc. etc. ad nauseum. Yes, nauseum. They had a "teacup" ride to make themselves sick, which several did. Gosh, I was so sorry that I couldn't chaperone, but you see, I'm on this medication....

Spouse and I made good use of the quiet house. But I had to get up early the next day to deliver a rented van to the church. The kids were pretty wiped which was well. We all did some serious napping on Sunday.

This work week has been nuts. It's a combination of being out of pocket for the previous week and the project plan getting dangerously close to reality. Dangerously because, in the words of the great German strategist von Moltke the Elder, "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy." But in this case, the enemy is baked into the plan. As this plan encounters reality, it starts coming apart at the seams, much as I had predicted when I came to the project. The gap between what we do and what we learned in the class last week.

Despite the gathering air of panic, I bailed out of work early yesterday afternoon to ride with a couple of other dads to the big football game. It's a 3+ hour drive. Our guys won. Son was playing defense as an outside linebacker and picked up a fumble. He tiptoed fifteen yards down the sideline before getting pushed out of bounds (followed by a late hit after the whistle, but that went unnoticed by the officials -- that's football). We finally got home at 1:30 AM. I skipped my usual sleep aid (Elavil, aka amitriptyline) and slept just fine. Up this morning at a little before 7:00 and on wall-to-wall conference calls that actually required participation. Now I'm waiting up for kids. It's 11:20 PM. I think I'll wait up on the couch.

To all who are fighting this and more difficult challenges:

Go for the swine with a blithe heart.
William Churchill