Posts Tagged ‘remission’

Hah!

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010

I am in a definite MOOD today. Smart assed, snide, snotty, up in the air, goofy – quite the combination. Read some tweets by a popular actor, one of my (former) very favorites and didn’t like what he posted so I basically tweeted back and asked him WTF his problem was. I imagine he’s offline now, so I’ll check back this evening to see if I get any type of response. He may have been tweeting in an altered state, so I’ll keep that in mind.

Dental visit on Friday was a FAIL. The DDS couldn’t sedate/numb the root of the tooth at all so I walked out with a temporary filling laced with an agent designed to either kill or sedate the root. Feeling some aching in the jaw now so I don’t think it worked. I go back on Monday to give the DDS another try at fixing it – root canal, of course. If they can’t get it sedated to the point where I feel no pain I’m not sure how we’ll have to proceed. I tried to encourage the dentist to pull the fucking tooth, but he wouldn’t do it. Said it’s too close to the front of my mouth and the gap would be visible with every smile. Can’t have that now, can we? SHIT

Anyway – this is a new dental office for us and I have to say that I really like the dentist they assigned to me. He was quite pleasant and funny, very talkative, older gentleman. Beats the damn assholes I’ve gone to over the past 10 years – those that want to fuck up my entire mouth and fill it with porcelain veneers. Bullshit! Those things look like goddamn chicklets and I have one in the front of my face to prove it. I hate that tooth with a passion. The new dentist said that he will petition the dental insurer to see if he can be allowed to replace it with something more natural looking. The temporary cap that I had there initially looked fine – blended in perfectly with all of my natural teeth. Why couldn’t they just leave that in there?  Dumbasses… Oh wait! I know why they couldn’t leave it! Because they wouldn’t have been able to collect the $850 fee connected to the veneer.

Feeling OK as of late – other than the damn tooth that has been acting up since March 18th. Alternating antidepressant med dosage day to day – some days I take just one, some days I take two. I’m actually supposed to take 3 each day. That’s way too much and made me feel more depressed than ever. Less is more in some instances.

Still haven’t heard back from the liver doc. This is OK since I’d really like to get this tooth mess out of the way before taking on major medical treatments/drug regimens.  I’ve recently read of two spontaneous remissions on a hep C board. If only I could get there.

DONE (for now)

Doc

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Went to see Doc Korsakoff today for blood work results. Liver enzymes up slightly, as always; thyroid off – have to see regular doc to have meds increased a bit; viral level was 69,100 three years ago, its now 130,000 – just about double from 2006. The increase in viral level is not really significant. Most people have levels that are in the high hundreds of thousands or many millions. This is a good thing for me at this time.

I’ll be waiting on the resource center from the hospital to call this week to schedule my liver biopsy. This test will be the one that will decide exactly how we move forward – routine therapy if I’m still in stage three with Doc K OR if he believes we can wait until next year when Telaprevir is released, that’s what we’ll do.  Routine treatment gives me a 40% chance of success. Telaprevir will give me an 80% plus chance at reaching remission.  IF I’ve reached stage four fibrosis we will then have to arrange IMMEDIATE treatment with Doc K and a transplant facility because the risk of total liver failure that most stage four patients end up experiencing.

We talked about the LIVE donor program and Mt. Siani hospital in NYC does offer this option. If we have to do the latter treatment, Blace will be thoroughly tested as my potential donor. If liver failure happens and I have a successful transplant then there is a huge chance that I’ll achieve total remission and will live the remainder of my life free of the hep C virus.  The only downfall would be that I’d have to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of my life.

So, that’s about it for now!

DONE