12th November 2015
Earlier this week I went and had a sample of blood removed from my arm for my 12 week post treatment viral load test.
Here I have to confess to mild anxiety... perhaps best described as a niggling worry:
“What if the virus is detected?”
Despite the fact that I am feeling fantastic and I have no symptoms of a relapse it is still human nature to fear the negative outcome. So I am just slightly anxious about my appointment at the Liver Clinic tomorrow morning. Thank God it is at 9 a.m. so I will wake up have breakfast and drive straight into town and get the result.
It will be interesting because this will be my first meeting with the Royal Hobart Hospital’s Hep nurse for about 6 months as she has been on long service leave since just after I returned from India.
A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then.
Since we last met in June I have helped more than 3,000 people access affordable Hepatitis C treatment, about half of those in Australia.
Since June Dr Freeman’s FixHepC Buyers Club has got up and running and has also helped at least that many people with Hep C access affordable treatment.
Since June a number of other liver clinics and specialists have begun to actively support patients treating their Hep C with generic medicines.
Since June there has been a lot of media coverage about the issues of access to affordable medicines and the obscenity of the pricing of these medicines by their manufacturers.
Since hundreds upon hundreds of people have been reporting fantastic results from treatment with these generic medicines. Undetectable viral loads at 2 and 4 weeks after beginning treatment. Liver function result back into normal ranges for the first time in many years. So many positive results and reports.
On the negative side a whole lot of insecure, pompous Specialists running major liver clinics have tried to talk people out of using generics to treat their disease even though they offer no alternative except the torture and danger of ineffective Interferon treatment. These doctors are either in the pocket of Big Pharma or they are so narrow minded and ill informed that they have no interest in providing the best treatment options for their patients.
So I will be interested to hear her perspective, as an insider, on all this.