I am a 57-year-old white American male infected with Hepatitis C. I am involved in a controlled medical research study by Roche Pharmaceuticals of an experimental Polymerase Inhibitor (RO5024048 also known as RG7128) drug therapy for the virus. This document is the story of my illness and the experience of treatment. My lovely and pretty damn wonderful wife will be contributing her take on the experience as well.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Walkin’ After Midnight

What with the general insomnia that the interferon and ribavirin treatment can bring about, combined with the pure nervous overload of my recent bout of serotonin syndrome, I have found myself pacing around my house in the middle of the night with some frequency in recent days. If I start at the back of the house and walk though the “breakfast room,” the kitchen, the dining room – such as it is, the living room and return on the same track, I walk about 90 feet. If I do ten laps it is 900 feet, twenty makes 1800 and 25 laps is just under a half a mile. It takes about 15 minutes to do 25 laps as I can’t really build up a lot of speed in the dark because the bruising on the shins becomes quite painful if one is not careful to watch where one is going. This pacing generally quiets down the leg jitters and twitches and tires me out enough that I fall asleep after going back to bed.

Unfortunately, I occasionally wake up and can’t fall back asleep necessitating another set of laps until I am tired enough to sleep through the night. Aside from toning up the calves nicely, these late-night peregrinations also allow one to review all the plans one once had for the house. That floor you were going to refinish; the cracks in the plaster that need patching, the new chandelier you were going to install in the dining room about ten years ago. There is nothing like the middle of the night to come face to face with all the grand, and unfulfilled, plans one had for your castle. It’s a good thing the lights are out or the number of flaws and not quite finished details would be overwhelming.

But then I climb the, squeaky, set of stairs to the second floor, climb into bed next to my (gently, gently) snoring sweetie, put my arm around her and think that the new paint on the stairway can wait awhile, it’s perfectly comfortable as it is.

1 comment:

  1. I was diagnosed as HEPATITIS B carrier in 2013 with fibrosis of the
    liver already present. I started on antiviral medications which
    reduced the viral load initially. After a couple of years the virus
    became resistant. I started on HEPATITIS B Herbal treatment from
    ULTIMATE LIFE CLINIC (www.ultimatelifeclinic.com) in March, 2020. Their
    treatment totally reversed the virus. I did another blood test after
    the 6 months long treatment and tested negative to the virus. Amazing
    treatment! This treatment is a breakthrough for all HBV carriers..

    ReplyDelete