Shot #5: Another video injection and vomiting makes it debut

Injection number #5 is down and gone. Now we’ll see what side effects I have. “Sock-it to me Mama!” On Saturday I actually started to vomit. I’ve been feeing just on cusp until now and then it finally happened. So here is a video of injection number #5. As I mentioned on the video, my nurse called me today and told me that she’ll ask my doctor whether we should try intramuscular injections of Gavol and see if that my gets the tummy under control. I’ll update if there are new side effects, or there is a resolution of others.

Cheers,

David McHep C

Shot Number # 4, A video of a manic Monday

Tonight I did injection number #4. I thought that I better make my posting tonight, since there is no way of knowing how it will affect me. After shot # 2, I was hit pretty hard by side effects. So much so that I never got around to making a posting about shot number #3. The side effects from shot number #2 continued right through and into shot number #3. The worse side effects are insomnia and nausea. I saw my Hepatologist on Thursday and he gave me some sleeping aids and a drug that they give to people on cancer treatment for the nausea. My over the counter anti-nausea pills did nothing. Because this was my all-important fourth shot, I now need to make it to the hospital this week to do my Viral Load (VL) test. The results will decide whether my treatment will continue. As I mentioned before, if I have an undetectable result I am a quick responder. Others have mentioned that they like to see at least a 2-log drop, so my 40 million down to 400,000 would be nice, but my nurse says that any drop would be good. If there is no drop, then they may ask me if I want to stop. My nurse feels sure that there will defiantly be some sort of drop. I noticed today that my weight is down by over 10lbs so perhaps that is a good sign.

I decided to videotape this injection just to show how I spend my Monday nights. So here another Monday passed.


P.S: I should add that I did my Week #4 VL test on Thursday, February 18th. I have an appointment with my nurse on March 8th when we will discuss that results and how it will affect the future of my treatment. I also finally saw and ENT Specialist who is located in Toronto and so far I am happy with him. He has put me on a high dose of antibiotics for the next 3 weeks. They will also do a CT scan and then discuss whether further surgery may be necessary. It was a trying day energy wise, but I feel good about it.

Cheers,

David McHep C

Second Shot, Same As The First, But A Little Bit Harsher And A Little Bit Worse:

First I have a correction to make to my last posting. When I was talking about blood work and Viral Load (VL) calculations, I said that my VL was 14 million so a 2-log drop would be 140,000. Well, my VL is actually 40 million so a 2-log drop would be 400,000. Don’t ask me where the 14 million came from. There was never a 14 million count. I would like to blame it on brain fog, but since I had only been on treatment a few days… I got a clarification from my nurse yesterday too. As much as they would like to see around a 2-log drop, or undetectable would be even better, any decline is good news.

After my last injection I may have tooted my horn to soon when I said I hardly had any side effects. I felt OK the first night and most of Tuesday. Then Tuesday evening I began to feel a little achy. Like you feel when you are coming down with a cold or the flu. It lasted a few days and then I began to feel fairly normal before my next shot.

Yesterday my nurse came here to watch me inject myself. That went even smoother than I thought it would. As I said before I started treatment, I have a large canvas to work with, lots of surface to move from site to site. I have noticed that the site of the first injection has developed a small red rash. It isn’t itchy or anything, I just noticed it when I looked at it. Yesterday’s site is just a little bruise right now.

As for my reaction to this shot, last night I felt kind of nauseous and agitated. Both interfered with falling a sleep, or staying asleep. At first, I just had trouble nodding off because of the nausea. Then after I finally fell asleep, I woke up from the agitation. Then the agitation made it difficult to fall back to sleep. I also had a little trouble with my teeth chattering. It wasn’t much of a chatter but just enough to notice it. I woke up once during the night sweaty so I had to get up and dry off some before I could fall back to sleep. I tried napping today but I still have a bit of that chatter. I don’t know if it is caused by the agitation or because of small fevers. I know that I still feel kind of agitated, but I also switch from feeling hot to feeling cold when I lay down. So I am not sure what is causing my chatter. I am hoping for a better sleep tonight. I have an appointment on Thursday and I don’t want to go to it feeling whacked.

That is all I have to say for now. I’ll report more as I feel it necessary.

Cheers for now,

David McHep C