How long has it been? A long time, that’s how long. Long enough for you to say “hey who is this person anyway?”

And why so long? Well apart from the loss of two sparkling, witty, charming and dazzling blog posts (due to aforementioned stupidity), I’ve been busy. Mostly busy. Okay, partly busy and partly lazy. With a trip to Iceland thrown into the mix.

So the story goes like this:

I’m now two years post the start of my successful treatment for HCV. I’m edging towards two years since I completed treatment: September 2015. Nearly two years of SVR, during which time my body has had an opportunity to recover from the ravages of nearly 30 years of hep c, as well as 6 months of treatment.

Now, my body is not like a fine red wine. It has not improved with age. In fact, the opposite could safely be said. It is more like a car wreck. Everything creaks. Things ache. Nothing works quite as well as it used to. Some people might blame that on hep C. I’m choosing to believe that my body is “lived in”, like those lounge rooms that have scuff marks on the walls, coffee cup rings on the table and a stack of well-thumbed magazines on the ottoman, just waiting to be read.

However my body still gets me up and off to work every morning. It does the best job it can under the circumstances. There are health improvements in some areas. Mainly those boring internal things that you can’t see, the wiring under the bonnet and the transmission replacement sorts of things.

I’ve seen my platelet count rise. Sure, by a paltry sum, but nonetheless a rise. From the 50s to the 70s. If it keeps going up at that rate, by the time I’m 100 it might be normal!

Other liver markers have remained largely stable, such as my ALT and AST. Fluctuations but all in normal range.

I had a fibroscan and it showed a small improvement. When I started treatment it was 23.9, which is not very attractive by anyone’s standards. At the end of last year it was 19.1, an achievement I celebrated because it wasn’t upward movement.

Nothing much has changed apart from that. I still work. I still get busy. I still get tired. I sleep well enough, I eat (but not as well as I should). I avoid alcohol.

Life goes on.

And that’s the best part. Life goes on.

ps: If you ever get a hankering to go to Iceland, just do it. You will not regret it for an instant.

That’s us swimming in a geothermal heated pool. Carved out of the side of a volcano. In winter. Just below the Arctic Circle