Well, your viral load is down from about 4.5 million to 147. Not an expert, but I’d say that’s a HUGE improvement, and your treatment is working.

I’ll tell you what they said when I talked to the G.I. Doc’s office yesterday. “You are well on your way. Just keep taking your medication and don’t miss any doses. You’re doing great!”

July 18, 2016 – Last Friday’s meeting with my Gastroenterologist was a mixed bag. She bopped into the exam room first thing Friday morning with an iced Starbucks coffee in her hand, smiling and looking sharp and ready for the day.

We sat down and went over treatment progress so far, and discussed lab results. As stated previously, at 4 weeks virus was still detectable – but with a viral load of 35 vs. ~5.5 million earlier this year, treatment is obviously working. She reiterated that labs were normal (something of a miracle in and of itself).

I asked about whether she would order a viral load assay at 8 weeks along with my regular labs, and she said she would not. When I expressed my concern that we should know what happening before EOT, she became visibly irritated and responded to the effect that if I were to have the viral load assayed at 8 weeks, and I were not undetectable that she would just take me off treatment. I was stunned, but tried not to let on.

Whether or not to blog about this was something I thought about, but decided to do because it is so important. My Gastroenterologist had shown such courage in bucking the system to go ahead an follow my treatment with generic DAAs…. To then assert that she would “take you off treatment”, came across as callous, condescending, and egotistical in the extreme.

She needn’t worry though. I will take care of myself – and I don’t need her to do that. I do like her, but will fire her as my specialist in a heartbeat if she ever says anything like that again, or attempts to interfere with my recovery from HCV. The “Me doctor, you patient – and shut up and eat your peas, or I will withhold treatment” is hostage taking nonsense, and has become tiresome and irrelevant in my life.

Doctor, if you read this blog – understand that I am not powerless anymore. You can be part of the problem, or part of the solution. It is completely up to you.

We are so fortunate to have Dr James, the physicians at GP2U Telehealth, and Monkmed and their physicians. No matter where we are in the world, we have a crack medical team behind our recovery, and access to the best cutting edge medications available. Taking charge of our own recovery with that team behind us provides such a wonderful and real sense of empowerment.

For the first time in two decades, I no longer feel as if I am in continual retreat from, and at the mercy of something I know is there, but cannot fully define, or effectively fight.

The notion that someone can use their position as the arbiter of life and death to push me around, or intimidate me has become laughable. I simply won’t play that game anymore.