A New Direction

Well, my closing of this blog turns out to be a bit premature. Those of you who have been readers of this blog know that for the last couple of years I have been attempting to battle my chronic hepatitis c infection with alternative medicine, especially Chinese Herbal Medicine. I have recently come to a cross roads which has forced me to reevaluate my situation and chart a new course. Though for the most part I have been able to do what I want over the last couple of years things have continued progressing and I have continued to experience, off and on, some periods much worse than others, body aches, fatigue, lethargy, mild right upper quadrant abdomen pain and generalized "flu" like symptoms. The fact that for long stretches (months) of time I could just simply ignore these symptoms and go on, pushing myself to fulfill mundane responsiblies like my job etc. so that I could enjoy the wonderful year I have had, the highlight of which was marrying my Lady L. and enjoying a beautiful honeymoon and first year together, the fact remains, I too did also experience stretches of time where the symptoms where severe enough to limit my ability to work and take care of mundane affairs. I tend to be the eternal optimist and often found myself just pushing myself along, looking forward to the next beautiful day. Well, over the last couple of weeks I have again experienced a much more severe than usual bout of symptoms, similar too, but not quite as bad, as the first recorded in this Blog espisode of October 2005.

I am not sorry I gave Dr. Zhang's Chinese Medicine protocol a try, it definitely had some profound positive effects on my health and I am sure I am in better hepatic health today than I would have been otherwise. As mentioned it did allow me to enjoy an especially happy and rewarding period of my life. I have, however, now come to the point where I must admit this approach has not been enough, or at least, must now be augmented with more aggressive treatment methods. I am so certain of this that I actually approached my General Practioner this past week with a request for a referral to the Hepatologist I seen in June 2003 who at the time performed a liver biopsy (Grade 1, result) and offered me interferon treatment which, at the time, I declined for the option journaled here. At the time he said that was fine, he could agree to that and recommended a follow up biopsy in 2-3 years, time has a tendency to get away from one, and it has now been 4 years since this last biopsy. I am now awaiting the referral from my health insurance and will followup with this course of action. I am sure he will want to do a followup bisopsy and I am now determined to follow his subsequent recommendation, even if that is interferon treatment.

Like most guys, it's hard for me to admit to being afraid but I guess that's a large part of what I've been battling with. We all know courage is important and I am determined to muster the internal resolve to see this through but perhaps, the real key lies in the yogic Niyama (practices, observances) of Isvarapranidhana, which literally means in Sanskrit, "to lay all actions at the feet of God". Maybe self-surrender is the key, after all, as it is written, "For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect". After all, I know I have done everything in my personal power to combat this and now it's up to the Universal Will.