Good morning Countless

The answes to your questions are no and no.

The best support I have had during the past year are from the good people of this forum, a few on the UK forum, MonkMed and Dr Freeman.

Over time I have been lucky to have found a few kind & supportive people within the UK NHS among the ‘less supportive’ – There are some amazing people out there, but you need to seek them out. Unfortunately I cannot name them, but they include a patient advocate medic, my GP, a lovely specialist nurse at 5+ months in, an awesome IV spec. nurse and some extremely pro-active Drs in the health system who are sticking their necks out to help HepC patients here in the UK.

In a personal sense not really and at work, none, not possible.

I have learned over this journey that the best people to support you are those who are walking or have walked in your shoes. At 12 weeks post treatment, I am very glad I limited who I told. Apart from anything else, HepC is a complex condition and naturally many people don’t understand the ins and outs. Many don’t understand how ill you can feel when you are seemigly ok and it can be labourious trying to explain. I told 2 people, one started out supportive and then stopped asking and changed the subject, the other supportive but didn’t like to talk about it. There is one more person, who I will lose soon and I find hard to talk about, they went untreated for years due to medical / admin errors / lack of knowledge and bureacratic restrictions mainly, and are losing their battle. Devastating.

As I have stated in my blog update this morning, this is the best place you can be for advise and support, that is my truly honest advise from my experience over the past nearly 3 years since diagnosis, the last year here and from the bottom of my heart.

LG

Hi Countless, I have sent you a private message xx

Speaking from my own experience, in spite of all the potential benefits, deciding to treat and then making the leap of faith to treat with generic DAAs was a surprisingly difficult decision.

A friend of mine framed it this way…”When you’ve woken up for 30 years (or alternatively, since diagnosis) to a punch in the face – life is hard to imagine without it”

Sometimes I wonder if that is one of the many hepc symptoms

Dear Countless
I reassure you that I lost hearing from peginf
My eyesight was affected from peginf
BUT
I’m cured from DAAs and feeling better all the time. IT’S A MIRACLE
I suffered anxiety from peginf it’s still an issue so I can read the anxiety you feel in your posts.
My life is so much better now.
Treatment with DAAs has turned everything around and I can see clearly now.
I’m in a similar profession to London Girl and no way could we ever disclose our illness in our field. Now I am HCV free I am even creating new work and think of it as a chance to try something which I might have never experienced.

I believe it’s the only choice
Treatment on DAAs is for now as so many of we lucky recipients can testify and well, before these came along tx was no picnic that’s for sure!
I look forward to your starting treatment and feeling new hope and starting to heal from the trauma too. I saw a psych for that part it was awesome support
Love from Ariel
PS so much good advice here already shared by others