Viral load: negative. Woo hoo! At long last, the desired result has been achieved, and I'm only six weeks past my original stop date. Only. When I got the news from Judy I realized that I was hoping for a negative result, despite what I wrote last week. I wanted to keep going and have a chance of clearing this disease, notwithstanding all of the trouble and expense of the treatment. It helps that I'm breathing better. The breathlessness peaked last Saturday and has slowly gone away over the last week. I don't know if I can attribute it to quitting smoking or to having lowered my dosage of Ribavirin, or to a combination of the two, but I don't much care which it is. I have no intention of looking this particular gift horse in the mouth. I'll just stay at 800 mg a day and continue not to smoke. [By the way, Pam, if you're reading this, I left you a note in last week's comments. I couldn't figure out any other way of responding to your comment.]
My goodness, life is so much easier when I can breathe! And when my thyroid levels are normal. I feel fantastic! It's been coming on for the last couple of weeks, ever since my last hypothyroid symptoms went away, but it got sort of derailed by the breathlessness. And now that I can breathe I go through my days feeling expansive, confident, joyful and ready for anything. Oddly, though, I occasionally have moments when I suddenly plunge into the depths of despair for no apparent reason and begin to contemplate suicide. It only lasts for a few minutes and then I'm back on top of the world again. My explanation is that my mood is naturally buoyant right now but the Interferon is tugging me back down, and every now and then it succeeds in tripping me up. I feel much the same way I did when my thyroid levels were normal for the first time in years, perhaps ever. For about two years I felt better and more alive than I had in longer than I could remember, and then I began having trouble with my dosage. And now I feel like the King of the World again.
This expansive feeling has laid to rest my concerns about my finances. When I started the treatment, I sent a mass email to my family to ask for a bit of financial help while I was on the Interferon. Without that help, I told them, I wouldn't be able to afford the treatment. I got a few responses saying they would be happy to help me, and I gave my address to a few of them, but the only one so far who has stumped up any cash is my brother. He's helped a lot, but he can't afford to give me all of what I need, and up to now I've felt diffident about approaching my family again and saying, "Remember that money you were supposed to give me?" So I've been living hand-to-mouth in a way which was becoming frightening; probably if the breathlessness hadn't made me quit smoking I would have had to do it simply because I couldn't afford it anymore. I've added up my bills and expenses over and over in the last few months, comparing them to my income and making unrealistic budgets to see if I would be able to make it without any help, wondering what the hell I was going to do.
Still, I haven't been very frugal, despite all of the panic and self-admonishment. I had to take my car to the shop on Tuesday because the "check engine" light had been on for two months and it was starting to cause problems, so what did I do on Monday? I bought a pair of cowboy boots on ebay. But, hey, they were vintage Lucchese in my size, in the perfect brown I've been looking for. A steal at $99. I couldn't pass them up. I dreamt the other morning, though, that they arrived and turned out to be hip boots. I pulled them on and they went up to the top of my thighs, which may be my way of telling myself that I made a foolish and unfitting purchase. But it's too late now! And then my car repair bill was $420, which was even higher than I'd been expecting. There goes half my rent and car payment for next month.
The funny thing is, I can't seem to bring myself to worry about my dire financial position. I just keep thinking everything will work out for the best, and I have this irrational feeling that it will all work out in a way I'll be happy with. At the moment I have about $15 in my checking account and $80 in credit, and I don't get paid until next Friday, at which point I'll have to pay rent, make my car payment and shell out another $115 co-pay for the Interferon and Ribavirin. After which I'll be broke again.
But everything's fine and I still want to go shopping. I don't get it. I suppose it's just that I've been teetering on the brink of financial ruin for the last ten years, since I got clean and started caring about such things, and disaster has not yet struck. Something always turns up, even if it usually proves to be nothing but a stopgap. So we shall see what happens in the next month.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
My shit's fucked up
I put off writing this for an hour or so this morning, to see if my mood would improve, but instead it's darkening, so I suppose I'd better get the blog out of the way before things get worse. I got the news from Judy on Tuesday: I still have a viral load. It's still less than ten, but it's still there. It hasn't moved. So I go to the lab on Monday and get poked one more time to see if anything has changed. I asked Judy, "So, at what point do we stop tacking on another two weeks?" She said, "When you have a negative result," but what I meant was, at what point do we give up, and she knew it. When I did ask the question she told me it's up to me.
Okay. Very well. I've thought about it and my decision is that if I still have a viral load next week, I'm going to stop the treatment. I draw the line at six extra weeks. It's obvious that my virus has stopped responding. Each time I've been tested the response has been less, until now, when the response is nil. There seems to be no point in continuing this expensive, wearying treatment if it's not going to help anything.
I find myself hoping that I do still have a viral load next week so that I'll have a legitimate excuse to stop the treatment. I can't breathe. When I can't breathe I have anxiety, and because the cause of the anxiety is physical and not going away, I can't control it and I end up with full-blown panic attacks. If I'm not in the middle of a panic attack, it's just under the surface, ready to strike. I quit drinking coffee to see if that would help. It didn't. I quit smoking, not so much to see if it would help as because it's no fun to smoke when I can't breathe, but I was hoping for some improvement. It's early days yet (I'm only on day five), but so far there has been no improvement at all. My trampoline arrived on Wednesday, but I can't jump on it because I can't breathe. I'm lightheaded all the time, and my hands and feet start to tingle if I walk to the car too quickly. My tinnitus is so bad that it causes thoughts of ritual suicide. I'm used to having a rushing or roaring sound in my ears, but lately it's a high-pitched whining, a constant sound like the most annoying mosquito in the world has set up housekeeping just outside my ear. Actually, it's the noise you hear just before you faint. I know because I've fainted a few times in my life (low blood-pressure), and that's what it sounds like just before everything goes black and I hit the floor. Only I don't faint, so it just goes on and on.
I'm wallowing in self-pity at the moment, but from where I sit right now, it feels justified. For at least the last six years, I have been making conscious efforts to improve the circumstances of my life, to alleviate the poverty, the drudgery and the loneliness which have been my lot for as long as I can remember, and nothing I've tried has worked. Last year I took a good long look at that pattern and concluded that there was something within me which was not allowing me to get what I wanted. So I worked steps specifically on that, and I endured an extremely painful series of internal changes, leading to a different kind of faith and trust in my higher power. What I asked for was to be shown the way out of the rut I kept finding myself in, over and over, to be shown the way toward what I really wanted. I've made some changes in the last six or seven months, tried some new things, tried some new ways, and everything I've tried has failed. And not only have I not been shown how to alleviate the poverty, the drudgery and the loneliness, but my burden has been made heavier with poor health. First it was the hypothyroidism; now it's the breathlessness.
When I began the Interferon treatment I made a decision to focus on just that for the year of the treatment. I felt that it would be enough to deal with. But I have to live my life in the meantime. I can't just take a vacation from my life while I'm being treated for Hepatitis C. I still have to go to work at my dull job, which I hate so much that I can barely force myself to go to it every day and barely force myself to do any work while I'm there, which I hate so much that I'm beginning to dislike my two co-workers, both of whom are really nice women. And I still have to go to meetings and do my best to listen with tolerance and generosity and to participate with something constructive. I still have to do my best to maintain the few friendships I have. And right now I feel I don't have enough energy to do any of those things. I can't do all of this shit if I can't breathe.
I was grateful for the breathlessness, in a way, when I made the decision to quit smoking. It had given me a taste of what emphysema must feel like, and my response was, "No thanks." There's nothing worse than not being able to breathe. At least my breathlessness is temporary. At least, I hope it is. I talked to Judy about it and asked if an inhaler would help. She said she's had a few patients with this problem and they were helped by using an inhaler. But did I get a prescription for an inhaler? No, I did not. She discussed my problem with the doctor on call (Dr H is on vacation), and he said it sounded like the breathlessness was triggering anxiety in me. No shit. And that was all he said. Thanks, Dr Shithead. I couldn't have figured that out for myself? I could lower my dosage of Ribavirin, which is the culprit for the breathlessness, but Dr H said that the patients who have the most success are the ones who can tolerate the full dosage of Ribavirin for the entire treatment. I'm not looking like a big success already; if I lower the Ribavirin dosage I'll have even less chance of clearing the disease.
So that's where things stand at the moment. If I find the silver lining I'll write about it.
Okay. Very well. I've thought about it and my decision is that if I still have a viral load next week, I'm going to stop the treatment. I draw the line at six extra weeks. It's obvious that my virus has stopped responding. Each time I've been tested the response has been less, until now, when the response is nil. There seems to be no point in continuing this expensive, wearying treatment if it's not going to help anything.
I find myself hoping that I do still have a viral load next week so that I'll have a legitimate excuse to stop the treatment. I can't breathe. When I can't breathe I have anxiety, and because the cause of the anxiety is physical and not going away, I can't control it and I end up with full-blown panic attacks. If I'm not in the middle of a panic attack, it's just under the surface, ready to strike. I quit drinking coffee to see if that would help. It didn't. I quit smoking, not so much to see if it would help as because it's no fun to smoke when I can't breathe, but I was hoping for some improvement. It's early days yet (I'm only on day five), but so far there has been no improvement at all. My trampoline arrived on Wednesday, but I can't jump on it because I can't breathe. I'm lightheaded all the time, and my hands and feet start to tingle if I walk to the car too quickly. My tinnitus is so bad that it causes thoughts of ritual suicide. I'm used to having a rushing or roaring sound in my ears, but lately it's a high-pitched whining, a constant sound like the most annoying mosquito in the world has set up housekeeping just outside my ear. Actually, it's the noise you hear just before you faint. I know because I've fainted a few times in my life (low blood-pressure), and that's what it sounds like just before everything goes black and I hit the floor. Only I don't faint, so it just goes on and on.
I'm wallowing in self-pity at the moment, but from where I sit right now, it feels justified. For at least the last six years, I have been making conscious efforts to improve the circumstances of my life, to alleviate the poverty, the drudgery and the loneliness which have been my lot for as long as I can remember, and nothing I've tried has worked. Last year I took a good long look at that pattern and concluded that there was something within me which was not allowing me to get what I wanted. So I worked steps specifically on that, and I endured an extremely painful series of internal changes, leading to a different kind of faith and trust in my higher power. What I asked for was to be shown the way out of the rut I kept finding myself in, over and over, to be shown the way toward what I really wanted. I've made some changes in the last six or seven months, tried some new things, tried some new ways, and everything I've tried has failed. And not only have I not been shown how to alleviate the poverty, the drudgery and the loneliness, but my burden has been made heavier with poor health. First it was the hypothyroidism; now it's the breathlessness.
When I began the Interferon treatment I made a decision to focus on just that for the year of the treatment. I felt that it would be enough to deal with. But I have to live my life in the meantime. I can't just take a vacation from my life while I'm being treated for Hepatitis C. I still have to go to work at my dull job, which I hate so much that I can barely force myself to go to it every day and barely force myself to do any work while I'm there, which I hate so much that I'm beginning to dislike my two co-workers, both of whom are really nice women. And I still have to go to meetings and do my best to listen with tolerance and generosity and to participate with something constructive. I still have to do my best to maintain the few friendships I have. And right now I feel I don't have enough energy to do any of those things. I can't do all of this shit if I can't breathe.
I was grateful for the breathlessness, in a way, when I made the decision to quit smoking. It had given me a taste of what emphysema must feel like, and my response was, "No thanks." There's nothing worse than not being able to breathe. At least my breathlessness is temporary. At least, I hope it is. I talked to Judy about it and asked if an inhaler would help. She said she's had a few patients with this problem and they were helped by using an inhaler. But did I get a prescription for an inhaler? No, I did not. She discussed my problem with the doctor on call (Dr H is on vacation), and he said it sounded like the breathlessness was triggering anxiety in me. No shit. And that was all he said. Thanks, Dr Shithead. I couldn't have figured that out for myself? I could lower my dosage of Ribavirin, which is the culprit for the breathlessness, but Dr H said that the patients who have the most success are the ones who can tolerate the full dosage of Ribavirin for the entire treatment. I'm not looking like a big success already; if I lower the Ribavirin dosage I'll have even less chance of clearing the disease.
So that's where things stand at the moment. If I find the silver lining I'll write about it.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Sunshine and flowers
No news is no news. I had my viral load checked this week, but since I didn't get to the lab until Tuesday morning I haven't yet heard the results. All of the other tests came back (I'm beautifully healthy), but that one takes longer than the rest. So I'll have to wait until Monday to know if I've attained the long-awaited zero.
The party was a smashing success and a good time was had by all. I forgot to get out my parasol and ended up with a sunburn, but that's really the only complaint I could possibly come up with. There was good food and plenty of it; people played games and talked and laughed and had fun; and we all got to show our appreciation of Kim with cake and gifts and cards. At one point I stopped and looked around at all the people and said to myself, "I need to remember this when I start thinking I don't have any friends." Later, when it was all over and cleaned up and I was able to take stock, I realized just how much I love entertaining. I love to throw parties for the people I love. I like small, intimate gatherings, and I love to have my friends over for food and games and conversation. I haven't been able to indulge that very much in my life because I tend to live in places which are too small for parties. Currently I live in a converted garage which is big enough for me but certainly not big enough to have, say, a Scrabble party. I have permission to use the back yard here whenever I want, but I don't want to overdo it. Besides, some parties just need to happen indoors and at night.
One result of the party was that my friend Rebecca came over today with a bunch of plants for my tiny garden-box. I have a handkerchief-sized yard of my own with a wooden box in it, about one foot by two feet, and when I moved in it was full of dirt and worms but had no plants in it. When Rebecca saw it at the party, she offered to give me some plants from her garden, and we spent an hour or so this morning preparing the soil and planting iris, nasturtiums, geraniums, lobelia, sage and various other pretty and good-smelling plants. It's obvious that some previous tenant had a green thumb, because the soil in the box is really good and rich, and there are still earthworms in it, which is a good sign. So now I have a garden and can go out and put my hands in the soil when I feel the need. I like gardening. And soon I'll have a profusion of flowers to look at and to use to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. I can sit out in the sunshine in my little yard and survey my handiwork while the birds and the insects flit about busily, doing their bit to ensure that reproduction occurs and everyone gets enough to eat.
I haven't got a mirror in my apartment, other than the small one on the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, so I haven't seen what I look like in a full-length mirror in a long time. On Sunday I house-sat for a friend whose apartment is full of mirrors, so I took the opportunity to examine myself in one of them, to survey the wreckage, so to speak. As I looked at it, I was struck by the recognition that I have a really nice body which I haven't taken very good care of. Even so, it looks damned good. It's a bit flabby, but not as much as it ought to be, considering how little exercise I get. It's perfectly proportioned and naturally muscular without a lot of fat, it has unblemished skin and not a lot of hair. It almost never gets sick. It has abundant energy. In short, it's a fucking miracle and I should be grateful for having been issued such a good one and stop focusing on what I perceive to be its flaws. Since I turned forty I've seen the aging process speed up; it seems that I see some new evidence in my face every morning when I put on my make-up. But it struck me on Sunday that lamenting and grieving what I've lost only makes things worse. If I celebrate what I've got left I can enjoy it while it's here and perhaps not feel so bereft when it goes.
My friend has a mini trampoline, which I hauled out and jumped on for about half an hour that night. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I hate running, but I can jump on a trampoline for hours. I liked it so much, in fact, that I decided right then and there to buy myself a mini trampoline, which I did on Monday. I bought it online and it hasn't arrived yet, but I'm waiting breathlessly for it to get here so I can jump on it (I'll have to buy myself a really good sports bra first, though). I'm not crazy about exercise for its own sake, so I've been looking for a way to get myself to do it on a regular basis. I love working with weights (I like to show off my muscles and see what they can do), so I've been doing some of that with the little five-pound weights I have at home, as well as push-ups and backwards push-ups and so forth, but I don't really get much aerobic exercise. I knew I had to find something that was fun, and I think I've found it. And if that gets boring after awhile, there's always hooping, which another friend of mine does. She showed me some moves the other day and that looked fun, too.
Bodily appreciation week continued when I met with Dr H on Wednesday and learned that all of my tests were normal, once again. Dr H said I'm in the top 10 percent as far as toleration of the drugs, and I'm very grateful for that. I chalk it up to good genes. I'm healthier than I deserve to be, taking everything into account. I eat pretty well, but I also smoke and don't get enough exercise, as I said above, and I spent quite a few years abusing my body with street drugs and needles. I've seen up close the damage that drugs can do to a person's body, and I'm grateful to have been spared that. Quitting smoking is next on the list of things to do that are good for me, and I suspect that this breathing trouble I've been having will tip the scales for me. I can't enjoy a cigarette when I'm feeling breathless already. I've got the lozenges; now I just need to set a date.
That's it for today, although I may write another entry on Monday, when I get the results of my viral load test.
The party was a smashing success and a good time was had by all. I forgot to get out my parasol and ended up with a sunburn, but that's really the only complaint I could possibly come up with. There was good food and plenty of it; people played games and talked and laughed and had fun; and we all got to show our appreciation of Kim with cake and gifts and cards. At one point I stopped and looked around at all the people and said to myself, "I need to remember this when I start thinking I don't have any friends." Later, when it was all over and cleaned up and I was able to take stock, I realized just how much I love entertaining. I love to throw parties for the people I love. I like small, intimate gatherings, and I love to have my friends over for food and games and conversation. I haven't been able to indulge that very much in my life because I tend to live in places which are too small for parties. Currently I live in a converted garage which is big enough for me but certainly not big enough to have, say, a Scrabble party. I have permission to use the back yard here whenever I want, but I don't want to overdo it. Besides, some parties just need to happen indoors and at night.
One result of the party was that my friend Rebecca came over today with a bunch of plants for my tiny garden-box. I have a handkerchief-sized yard of my own with a wooden box in it, about one foot by two feet, and when I moved in it was full of dirt and worms but had no plants in it. When Rebecca saw it at the party, she offered to give me some plants from her garden, and we spent an hour or so this morning preparing the soil and planting iris, nasturtiums, geraniums, lobelia, sage and various other pretty and good-smelling plants. It's obvious that some previous tenant had a green thumb, because the soil in the box is really good and rich, and there are still earthworms in it, which is a good sign. So now I have a garden and can go out and put my hands in the soil when I feel the need. I like gardening. And soon I'll have a profusion of flowers to look at and to use to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. I can sit out in the sunshine in my little yard and survey my handiwork while the birds and the insects flit about busily, doing their bit to ensure that reproduction occurs and everyone gets enough to eat.
I haven't got a mirror in my apartment, other than the small one on the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, so I haven't seen what I look like in a full-length mirror in a long time. On Sunday I house-sat for a friend whose apartment is full of mirrors, so I took the opportunity to examine myself in one of them, to survey the wreckage, so to speak. As I looked at it, I was struck by the recognition that I have a really nice body which I haven't taken very good care of. Even so, it looks damned good. It's a bit flabby, but not as much as it ought to be, considering how little exercise I get. It's perfectly proportioned and naturally muscular without a lot of fat, it has unblemished skin and not a lot of hair. It almost never gets sick. It has abundant energy. In short, it's a fucking miracle and I should be grateful for having been issued such a good one and stop focusing on what I perceive to be its flaws. Since I turned forty I've seen the aging process speed up; it seems that I see some new evidence in my face every morning when I put on my make-up. But it struck me on Sunday that lamenting and grieving what I've lost only makes things worse. If I celebrate what I've got left I can enjoy it while it's here and perhaps not feel so bereft when it goes.
My friend has a mini trampoline, which I hauled out and jumped on for about half an hour that night. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I hate running, but I can jump on a trampoline for hours. I liked it so much, in fact, that I decided right then and there to buy myself a mini trampoline, which I did on Monday. I bought it online and it hasn't arrived yet, but I'm waiting breathlessly for it to get here so I can jump on it (I'll have to buy myself a really good sports bra first, though). I'm not crazy about exercise for its own sake, so I've been looking for a way to get myself to do it on a regular basis. I love working with weights (I like to show off my muscles and see what they can do), so I've been doing some of that with the little five-pound weights I have at home, as well as push-ups and backwards push-ups and so forth, but I don't really get much aerobic exercise. I knew I had to find something that was fun, and I think I've found it. And if that gets boring after awhile, there's always hooping, which another friend of mine does. She showed me some moves the other day and that looked fun, too.
Bodily appreciation week continued when I met with Dr H on Wednesday and learned that all of my tests were normal, once again. Dr H said I'm in the top 10 percent as far as toleration of the drugs, and I'm very grateful for that. I chalk it up to good genes. I'm healthier than I deserve to be, taking everything into account. I eat pretty well, but I also smoke and don't get enough exercise, as I said above, and I spent quite a few years abusing my body with street drugs and needles. I've seen up close the damage that drugs can do to a person's body, and I'm grateful to have been spared that. Quitting smoking is next on the list of things to do that are good for me, and I suspect that this breathing trouble I've been having will tip the scales for me. I can't enjoy a cigarette when I'm feeling breathless already. I've got the lozenges; now I just need to set a date.
That's it for today, although I may write another entry on Monday, when I get the results of my viral load test.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Preoccupations
I haven't thought much about this blog this week, consumed as I have been by the party I'm throwing this afternoon. It's a celebration of my sponsor's fifteen-year clean time anniversary, which was yesterday, in addition to being just a garden-variety Fourth of July barbecue. I haven't thrown a party in a long time, and I'd forgotten how much has to be done. I'd just sort of assumed that the day would arrive and things would arrange themselves and everything would turn out perfectly, but of course it hasn't been like that at all. Yesterday I ran a bunch of errands, picking up things I needed for the party as well as all of my usual Saturday errands, and then I came home and got busy making potato salad and preparing the cucumber for a Greek salad. That took a few hours, after which I had to go out and buy Kim's gift. I went to Chaucer's Books, which may have been a mistake. I really think I should be given only a provisional pass for that shop. I cannot get out of there without spending three times as much money as I can afford. I found a gift and a card and managed to make it out the door with only one superfluous item, a deck of cards giving instructions on how to play Victorian parlor games, which I thought might be fun to try out on my guests this afternoon. I admit that I'm a sucker for that sort of thing: Exquisite Corpse, Mad Libs, any sort of word game or memory game. Most of my friends, however, don't share my enthusiasm, so the games may fall flat. We shall see.
Have I got anything to report about my treatment? I don't think so, except perhaps that I've noticed an increased shortness of breath since Dr Hahn raised my dose of Ribavirin. I may have to go back down to 800 mg a day if this doesn't get better. Hypothyroidism also causes shortness of breath, though, so it might not be the Ribavirin at all. I know my thyroid levels aren't where they should be, or perhaps it's just that the symptoms take awhile to go away. They're not as bad as they were, but they're not completely gone. I've noticed shortness of breath for the last couple of months, and it started after I started the Interferon treatment, so possibly that accounts for it. I'll talk to Judy and see what she thinks.
On Monday I go in for another round of labs. I'm not going to predict that my viral load will be zero this time, since I've been wrong every time before, but I will say that I hope it's zero. I've noticed a phenomenon as I've gone through this treatment so far. When I first started it, I resigned myself to a year of not feeling too great, for the sake of not dying of liver disease at some future point. I focused on the day in front of me and didn't think too much about where I was going, but as time has gone on, it's harder and harder not to think about the future. I'm a third of the way through my treatment and I'm feeling trapped in it. It's the same sort of feeling I used to get when I lived in Minneapolis and I would suddenly feel claustrophobic because I was trapped out in the middle of the continent, with no ocean anywhere near. I suppose the answer is to stop thinking ahead and continue to focus on the day at hand, but I'm curious to see if this trapped feeling goes away when I hit the halfway-point. At that point I will have climbed to the top of the mountain and begun my descent, and I suspect that just knowing that half of my treatment is behind me will be enough to cure the claustrophobia.
This was the shortest post yet. Let the party be my excuse. I have to get busy now and dress the potato salad, make the Greek salad and scare up some more chairs so that my guests don't have to sit on the ground.
Have I got anything to report about my treatment? I don't think so, except perhaps that I've noticed an increased shortness of breath since Dr Hahn raised my dose of Ribavirin. I may have to go back down to 800 mg a day if this doesn't get better. Hypothyroidism also causes shortness of breath, though, so it might not be the Ribavirin at all. I know my thyroid levels aren't where they should be, or perhaps it's just that the symptoms take awhile to go away. They're not as bad as they were, but they're not completely gone. I've noticed shortness of breath for the last couple of months, and it started after I started the Interferon treatment, so possibly that accounts for it. I'll talk to Judy and see what she thinks.
On Monday I go in for another round of labs. I'm not going to predict that my viral load will be zero this time, since I've been wrong every time before, but I will say that I hope it's zero. I've noticed a phenomenon as I've gone through this treatment so far. When I first started it, I resigned myself to a year of not feeling too great, for the sake of not dying of liver disease at some future point. I focused on the day in front of me and didn't think too much about where I was going, but as time has gone on, it's harder and harder not to think about the future. I'm a third of the way through my treatment and I'm feeling trapped in it. It's the same sort of feeling I used to get when I lived in Minneapolis and I would suddenly feel claustrophobic because I was trapped out in the middle of the continent, with no ocean anywhere near. I suppose the answer is to stop thinking ahead and continue to focus on the day at hand, but I'm curious to see if this trapped feeling goes away when I hit the halfway-point. At that point I will have climbed to the top of the mountain and begun my descent, and I suspect that just knowing that half of my treatment is behind me will be enough to cure the claustrophobia.
This was the shortest post yet. Let the party be my excuse. I have to get busy now and dress the potato salad, make the Greek salad and scare up some more chairs so that my guests don't have to sit on the ground.
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