April 23 - Shot #12 complete!

Saturday morning, following 12th injection last night. Another starbucks morning, with my coffee and cranberry-orange scone. I may associate starbucks and interferon for the rest of my life! Injection was what it normally is…. headaches, muscle aches, sore skin, all eased to some degree by tylenol es, which I took through the night and again this morning. Know that by tomorrow, I’ll be feeling pretty good. Although many people have said that the treatment does not fit into a pattern for them, I find my personal reaction very patterned. Night of shot and next day I have the above flu-like reactions, pretty controllable by the tylenol, and am too tired to do much of anything. By Sunday feeling better and this progresses through the week, peaking on Wednesday (best day for me to make major plans). Thursday, things can be a little rough and I remind myself of this on Thursday mornings, telling myself that if the world is acting like a ridiculous place, it may, in fact, be me. Friday not bad, other than knowing that I must do yet another injection that night! Pretty patterned. Now, I do like patterns and they make me secure, so perhaps I’ve influenced all of this to some degree. Ultimately, I feel fortunate that the treatment is fitting into one for me and that the side effects are not unbearable.

So I’m half way finished! 12 more shots to go. Repeat performance of what’s been done and it’s all done! How am I feeling at the ½ way mark – guardedly optimistic. The problem with benchmarks like this is that although you’ve been through half, there is still half to go. It’s not over yet, and the thought of another 3 months of this is less than fun. I was not expecting to feel euphoric at this stage of the treatment and find myself grateful that things are as they are. The first 3 months have been totally doable and I’ve been really fortunate not to experience anything very horrible. The upcoming viral load check is somewhat daunting…. I have my blood work done next Friday morning. Despite the results, I’ll be continuing to the end of the 24 weeks. The results do matter though, the prognosis for my outcome affected by that required at least 2 log drop.

In the land of treatment side effects, some things have been showing remarkable improvement! Cough has been significantly better this week. Rash is literally gone! Injection site redness continues, coming up about 2 days after injection and lasting until just after the next one. No skin breakdown, or signs of infection, so I just treat the redness as a nice little map of where I shot last and where not to go again. While my hair is not falling out, it appears to have pretty much stopped growing. Again, always the optimist, have decided that because I only have to shave my legs about once every 2 weeks or so now, this is absolutely fabulous for the coming summer! Chemotherapeutic benefit!

Now, summer may not actually ever be coming here in Toronto the grey. Or perhaps it’s already been? We had one completely anomalous day last week, where the temperature went up to a sunny and blistering 27 degrees Celsius. Of course, this was the day I was stuck on my feet in a biohazard containment area wearing about 6 layers of protective equipment for four and a half hours with no water and no air conditioning…. not a great plan on treatment. Will be keeping those sessions to a maximum of 2 hours in the future. Other than that day, it is cold (currently 4 degrees), grey and raining. Good thing this city has so many other things to like!

The week’s been busy and wonderful. The problem with trying to slow down, is that there’s no time to slow down! Our son Phil, who is totally into music, will be going on a trip with his music class next March to Italy and Greece. Am SO excited for him! What an amazing experience – he’ll have just turned 16 when he goes. So we were at meetings about the trip. Had a great Shiatsu massage on Thursday. Got out on Tuesday evening with my friend Barb and had a really nice time. Had lunch with my friend Sarah yesterday, always wonderful to see her. Can’t believe how quickly the time is passing!

Today will be quiet. Picked up some mung lentil beans in the market on my way home yesterday and today will be making the curry recipe very kindly posted by Ijaz Ahmad on his blog – am really looking forward to it! Tomorrow, will probably see my sister Sally, who always comes down Sundays bringing me things I need, or taking me out to shop, yet another wonderful favour from one of the truly fabulous family and friends who make all of this so much easier for me!

Sue