First Few Days

Well the start date was 27th March 2008 and I duely turned up at the hospital 15 minutes early for my midday appointment. I was meeting with the registrar who was going to run through the ins and outs of treatment and then oversee the first injection. I hadnt seen the consultant since my first meeting back at the beginning of february so I also had a long list of questions. The formalitites took almost an hour and once the baseline bloods had been taken I was ready to have my first shot of interferon at about 1.40 pm. One of the nurses offered to do the sub-cutenous injection and being a bit of a wimp, who was I to refuse. Thinking back, it probably would have been better if I had done it myself. The injection didnt hurt and I think I could have done with the practice at self-administation. I really am dreading having to do it next week. I have visions of me wildly stabbing away at my stomach whilst looking in the other direction....a recipe for disaster me thinks! All quite ironic really, but thats another story.

I had taken 2 paracetamol about an hour before the injection so really wasn't sure what to expect. The nurses kept me at the hospital for an hour after the injection to check for any anaphylactic reaction. All went fine and they set me free just after 2.30 pm. The afternoon was uneventful, did some shopping on the way home and then got out into the garden and planted some veg....a kinda 2 fingered statement to the pesky virus. Felt fine until about 7.00 pm by which time the dreaded flu like symptoms had started. Two more paracematol, followed by a little diner and my first 3 riba pills and all felt well again. I got an early night and was in bed by about 10 ish. Must have dropped off quite quickly but woke up an hour later with more intense flu like symptons....this was real "man flu". I honestly felt so shit I thought I was going to die! Looked at the clock and worked out the 6 hour period between paracetamol hadnt passed. Shit! I tried for all of 20 minutes to rough it out and get back to sleep. Gave up, took 2 more paracetamol and within 1/2 hour had fallen back to sleep. All in all, the rest of the night was fairly uneventful. Woke up a few times and had a few sweats, but nothing too bad.

Next morning I didnt feel too bad at all. Had breakfast which included a yoghurt smootie and 3 more riba (those on tx will understand this!). Took 2 paracetamol mid morning as a precaution but dont think I really needed them. A couple more single doses during the afternoon and evening and that was it. Since then there have been no interferon sides.

To date side effects from the riba have only included a bit of echma between fingers and the start of what is probably going to be the dreaded riba cough....oh, there is the flatulance which I assume is related to either the riba or yoghurt!

For the last 24 hours I have been waiting for the second stage of the interferon injection to kick in. For those reading this that are not accustom to treatment, the interferon that I am using (Peagsys) has been formulated to produce two distinct peaks during the week. The first occurs a few hours after the injection, the second is supposed to kick in around 72 - 90 hours after the injection. I am now at about 93 hours and nothing has happened yet. Is it going to happen? Am I going to be lucky with my sides? Who knows....I'm certainly not counting any chickens yet (only ribas...... 1992 to go!). In a strange way I want to feel something to give me the ressurance that something is actually happening inside my body. At the moment everything seems too quiet and easy....and that worries me a bit. Are the meds doing anything? Time will tell but at the moment I am just living hour by hour, day by day.