Fiddling while Rome burns

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.