Diagnosis of Hepatitis C – What Next?

So you have a diagnosis of Hepatitis C – What Next? There is treatment. How you react depends your age, lifestyle, and stage of cirrhosis. Hopefully you don’t have  End Stage Liver Disease (ESLD) ,and need a transplant. You may not have liver damage or symptoms, or maybe you just had an MRI after an emergency room visit after experiencing many symptoms for years. No matter where you are on the scale, there are many things that all hep c sufferers and those on treatment share.

Terror – I think the thing we all experience first is sheer terror,  like a rock in the stomach that won’t go away. I was in disbelief one minute and anxiety the next. Reading the internet didn’t help so much. I kept reading stories by and about people who had hep c.After a short read, I would log off and go worry or zone out with television, music, or try and talk with friends and family. You may feel that way at first. Take it in small doses. It’s much easier to swallow that way.

Diagnosis of Hep C – What Next?

Not so sick? If you have health and youth on your side, then I am SO happy for you. Kudos to your doctor for running the test. If you’re like me and find out that you have cirrhosis upon being diagnosed with hep c, it’s a slap in the face. Read on, you’re not alone. That wake up call is like a bullhorn going off in your brain. Most likely you have been having physical symptoms and didn’t know what to attribute them to. You kept thinking you were just getting older, or in my case, menopausal. The first thing out of your doctor’s mouth may have been to put an expiration date on your life.

Friends – You have a diagnosis of Hepatitis C – now what? You find yourself in a life that you don’t even recognize. There’s a gut wrenching fear that you want to escape from, and you may be  in a state of shock. The entire medical system kind of pulls you in and suddenly that nurse or lab tech take on supernatural qualities. At least they did for me. I asked everyone who walked in my room if they had any information. The poor lady from housekeeping ended up being my friend. She brought a People magazine and talked to me about the latest pop culture headlines at 3:00 A.M.

One thing that helps eventually is all the decisions you have to make. At least you’ll feel like that’s what you’re doing. Most of them will be made for you in the beginning.

Tests

Liver biopsy or Fibroscan

Magnetic Resonance Scan (MRI) or CAT scan

Endoscopy and colonoscopy

Countless tubes of blood for a zillion different reasons. 

Symptoms

If you are like me, you have to have 3 liters of ascites drained.  It felt like myuniverse had collapsed. I was laughing and joking, trying to keep up a façade that I didn’t feel. It’s a good thing to be kept moving from one part of the hospital to another. People make decisions for you, telling you where to go and what to do. Everything happens in a blur.

Although it’s been over 2 years, I still feel the shock. Sometimes it hits several times a day. It’s like PTSD It’s not that feeling that the sky is falling, but is akin to a meteor shower. I watched one recently, perched outside on a lawn chair in the middle of the night. Leaning back and looking up, I scanned the horizon, and soon saw one shoot in my peripheral vision. My heart leaped! I began looking more intensely, and then saw several of them in quick succession.  Beautiful points of light shooting through the darkness. My body relaxed and I felt a smile spread across my face.

It was magnificent to see. I realized that throughout all the ages since creation, meteors had been falling. Beautiful nights like these had been observed by countless men and women.

Staying Alive

That night I felt alive. I had endured almost a year of Hepatitis C treatment and lived to tell about it. I had massive bleedout of esophageal varices and yet now, was laying under the stars enjoying life.

If you are reading this and have just been diagnosed, please take heart. Take a piece of mine. I wear it on my sleeve these days anyway, because it’s a frightening time.

I’ll leave you with the words that I wanted to hear when I first logged on looked for reassurance. You can do this. It isn’t a death sentence. There are  new drugs, doctors, and transplant centers to help you through anything. More and more of us getting a diagnosis of Hepatitis C – now what? You’re not alone. Karen:)

You might enjoy these posts too or click here for a video from Hepatitisc.net or link to Healthline.com

Learning You Have Hepatitis C

You Can Treat to Cure

Hepatitis C Treatment at Work

Starting Hepatitis C Treatment