Okay, Enough Nagging
My Uncertain friend wants an update. I am capable of updating this blog outside of airports. To prove it, I am presently ensconced in my own office chair in my own converted dining room home office and typing on my vintage 1984 IBM Model M "Clicky" keyboard. I bought it on E-Bay a couple of weeks ago because my hands were killing me from typing on my laptop keyboard. I briefly considered taking it with me on my last trip, but decided against it. Th thing weights about six pounds (three kilos). This is as close to a perfected machine as we have in the IT industry.
And of course, it's obsolete.
I've been in this industry long enough to be a curmudgeon.
Dodgeball
But dear UC wants to know about family and kids, being as how she can no longer read minds. The kids are great. Winding down the school year. Eldest is committed to NAU. I cut yet another business trip short last week to referee a dodgeball tournament at the high school on Firday. Eldest and Middle (aka Son) are in student council and had come up with the tournament as a fundraiser. A fun, but exhausting evening. The team registrations paid all their expenses ($40 per eight-person team and they had 20+ teams) and they committed the door receipts to a charitable cause, the family of a kid in Middle's sophomore class who had turned up with leukemia (of which more shortly). The concession was their fundraiser and netted them over $600 which made it a decent night's work.
Rough Treatment
We've known the kid with leukemia for several years. Son played Little League baseball with him. He was playing in a baseball game and started feeling bad enough that the trainer told his dad to take him to the ER. I would not trade 48 weeks of treatment for one day of what those parents are going through.
As for the kid, well, we all know that hep C treatment is long and grueling. To those on treatment: when when you start feeling sorry for yourself (and you will), consider what this kid is facing.
- He has one of those ports installed in his chest where they can dump chemicals directly into a major artery because the stuff is so toxic it will destroy veins.
- He has lost his hair. Not thin hair, no hair.
- He is on massive doses of steroids giving him a moon face even though he's lost twenty pounts.
- His white blood count was so low last month that he was confined to two rooms of the house. Anyone entering had to leave their shoes at the door and wash up. If he went out, he had to wear a mask
- Oh, and his treatment calendar? Three years.
I'm putting my foot down and I won't travel for the month of May — and will probably get more done without the overhead of traveling. Our anniversary is coming up next week (21 years! Our marriage is an adult!). Of course we won't be doing much to observe it until maybe June. Youngest is in a musical and Eldest is graduating from high school. Family and friends, and all that.
With that, I'm out of here. I have an 8:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time (that would be 5:00 AM Arizona time).
4 comments:
...and now you're playing dodgeball with me. But it's OK, I'm not even going to have a liver function test or a PCR until I've been off treatment for 6 months. My theory is: if it's come back, why ruin the summer? Also, there's nothing I can do about it during that 6-month post-treatment time.
Perhaps you feel the same about that?
Oh, yeh, that.
I had a PCR at about eight weeks. Undetectable. Liver enzyme test two weeks ago was normal (the office left a recording so I didn't get numbers). All's well on that front.
And, as you say, UC, there's little to do about it if things go south. I hate worrying, especially when I have no control over a situation.
I'm leaving it alone until June. That's when I get the six-month PCR. If it's still Undetectable, then I'm done. If not, then I make a decision.
Congrats on the All Clear at 8 Weeks!
I don't know if you will be back, but you are the FIRST person I have found that links tinnitus to all of this. I just know they are connected. I have been trying to find someone else who even mentions tinnitus for a long time. I have it at least 75% of the time, but it seems to be connected to the Hep C, even before I started tx. Is it gone now?
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