Dare I take the risk?

I have mentioned before that when, or if, I got a new start date for my treatment I may not mention it. I had a fear that by announcing it I may jinx it and it would be changed on me once again. People may begin to think that I am yanking their chain. Then tonight I got a surprise phone call. More so because it is a Sunday night than I was not expecting this call. It was the nurse calling to set up a date. There is a little history to this call.

I had hoped that I would get the call telling me that my Section 8 had been approved before I left for my families place for the holidays. It never came though. The holidays came and went. By the way I enjoyed the time with my family. The holidays have changed for me since getting sober. In the old days I would always spend Christmas with the family and then come back home to spend New Year’s Eve partying in the big city. Now I spend a week or more with my family. It is a quiet time but a good time. I know so many people for whom the holidays are a horrible time. Some because they are lonely, and others because they hate spending time with their families and feel obligated to do so. My family seems to be able to spend time together and not get at each other’s throats.

Sadly a friend of mine’s mother died just before Christmas. I emphasize, DIED and not passed away since I know from some of his blogs that this was important to her. He has written some stories about his mother in his blog and I have been reading them. They make my eyes tear up and it takes me back to thoughts of my late mother. She died right after Mother’s Day on May 14, 2002. One thing he talks about in his blog is how his family enjoys each other’s company when they get together. He attributes this to his mother always making sure that they did things together as a family. It has had me thinking about how my mother always had the family play card or board games together. We made trips to Prince Edward Island as a family. How my parents managed that one I’ll never understand. Well enough about my holidays. They were good, but because of my friend’s mother’s death, mine was on my mind a little more this year.

I hoped that when I got home, that ever-elusive message that my Section 8 was approved, would be waiting for me. It was not. There were 21 messages though thanks to a miscommunication with my building. My building provides some services for the tenants. One thing that they do for me is call me to remind me to take my medications. When I left I told them to suspend the calls because I was going out of town. Since I was not sure when I was coming back I told them that I’d call them when I returned. So it was a little surprising to have 21 medication reminders waiting for me. Not one message was about my Section 8. I was a bit worried though that they may have tried calling but the mailbox was full. I have no idea how much it will hold. So I called the clinic the next day. They didn’t know the status but told me that they’d call back later that day. They didn’t so I just assumed that they’d call the next day. By the afternoon of the next day I was a little nervous that they forgot about me so I called back. This time they called back soon and told me that my Section 8 was approved and they had contacted the nurse. So I was expecting her call but since it is Sunday I expected her to call me tomorrow at the earliest.

So I now have a new start date. It is January 19, 2010. My Section 8 is approved so the only thing that should change it now is, a natural disaster (we’ve yet to have a big snow storm yet), or if they change it for some other reason. There is one other possible thing that may change it. Me! In the forum, the Nomads, that I participate in there are quite a few members who are doing a new style of treatment called pre-dosing. It involves starting the Ribavirin two weeks before starting the Pegasys. The idea behind this is have the blood saturated with Ribavirin before starting the Pegasys. So I plan on calling my hepatologist tomorrow to see if he has heard of this and if he would consider trying it. If he is I may try this route. My feeling is that if this may increase my chance of success then it would be worth it. I already have a poor chance of success so if this will prevent me from having to try another run at treatment in the future then it will be worth it. So if anything changes I’ll have to make another update before my planned injection January 19th.

Cheers for now,

David Mc Hep C