1 Down 23 To Go

Well, I've completed the first week of combo therapy as, with my wife's help, I injected the Intereron for the first time last Friday evening. Yes, I did get sides.......flu like body aches, loss of appetite, absolutely no energy. Had a bit of energy today, enough to do some mundane things around the house like pay bills and vacuum the carpet a tiny bit. Thankfully my lovely wife has been an angel this week, as always, she was there all week to pick up the pieces.
Well now that I'm feeling somewhat human again it's time here in another hour or so to give myself another weekly injection, getting ready for round two of this 24 round fight (thankfully my genotype, 3a only requires 24 weeks of treatment).
It turns out that I really could not have put this off any longer. I had reported in an earlier blog entry that my biopsy came back Grade 1. This was true but what my somewhat incommunicative Dr. didn't elaborate on was filled in by the nurse. As she explained and I've since confirmed by my own research is that Grade only refers to the amount of inflammation in the liver what is more important is Staging. Biopsies are staged in a 5 step point system, 0 to 4, 0 being a perfectly healthy liver and 4 being a liver suffering from cirrhosis with different Stages (1 to 3) of Fibrosis in between the two extremes. It turns out my biopsy came back Stage 3-4 which means its very fibrotic but not quite cirrhotic, but needless to say, it definitely has reached the stage where I would not want to put off conventional Combo Therapy (Interferon/Ribavirin) any longer. So I'm very glad we've got the ball rolling and with the support of my Lovely Lady I'm very determined to get through this, determined to keep my head up.