My 1st start date turned out to be the same day as my birth, a good omen maybe ? Listen, forget omens, statistics on treatment & research everyone is different, your end result is the only statistic that matters to you.
My actual start date was approx a year after Mother passed away. So I attended the clinic on a January afternoon. After going through the usual weighing, temperature, heart rate & blood pressure tests, then blood samples,(drawn with some trouble), requiring a Dr to go in either my Femoral (groin ) or jugular (neck) vein. This was to become the 1st lesson of my treatment protocol at the clinic & took a while for them to get a routine organised, much to my chagrin.
Next I met one of my specialist nurses, we sat & went through the ABC's of it, reminding me of joining a gym...here's your DVD on how to administer your jab, your AM & PM pill box, a trendy insulated, jab carry case complete with freeze bag, to place inside, A burn bin, A box of Rebetol, 3boxes of Virefieron & a bunch of booklets, my own tx goodie bag.
The nurse watched me do my 1st jab at around 4pm.They had me hang around for a while, in case of any adverse reaction...there was none. So I signed on the dotted line & that was it.
Arrived home, Cup of coffee, then waited to see how this would go, it was like dropping magic mushrooms for the 1st time, that same sense of expectation, "what was going to happen", ( I must add I hadn't read much about TX or hepatitis c, even, a big MISTAKE ). It started to come upon me late evening, slowly gaining momentum, until I had to take a paracetamol around 2am. No big mystery, the same reaction as a dirty fix or withdrawal symptoms. This may have been my first time on TX but I had been here many, many times before. Whilst I had a rough night, sweating, hot & cold shivering, this was pare for the course for a heroin addict.
The next day found me settling down, yet still out of sorts. I might have been used to such drug induced symptoms, but nothing could have prepared me for what lay ahead. This was to be the steepest learning curve faced so far in my life, in a game you better catch onto very quickly, if you want to be in the fight proper, you can't come unprepared & you can't get a late start. I had come unprepared & started too early. After all mum had only been gone barley a year.
Fact is, by the end of the time spent caring for Mother, circumstances had taken a heavy toll on me & my boy. I was so used to fighting the system,( social services ) & the care assistants, for mistakes made & here was another system that made mistakes. Meaning I'd got another thing to get to grips with, when really you just need to do your TX without worry or stress, ( I laugh now but the one time each month that I knew I'd be stressed, is when visiting the clinic ) along with a reliable, support framework. Of all these I had naught, apart from my loyal, reliable son.
The dye was cast, hold onto your hats we're in for a bumpy ride.
Rabbit.
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