Bodies obtained...

Stencil, Brick Lane, London 2004

I am due to take my 30th Interferon injection tonight @ 23:30pm. I have been feeling fine(ish) since my last jab, except for this niggling feeling of being moody and rather irritable lately. I have had it before, nearer the beginning of my treatment and learned to control it as i find myself doing so now. But i just cannot completely push it to one side or prevent it from happening in the first place. I know what could be causing it. Riba-rage i think they call it. I say 'could be', becuase as far as i can remember i have always been susceptible to mood swings & feeling quite angry about the most insignificant things. My living room walls have had the misfortune of acting as some kind of horizontal landing platform for numerous fast moving phones & TV remote controls over the years. I am happy to say i have stopped throwing things, but the anger is still there at times.
My anger problems may have stemmed from my not being able to understand other peoples actions, not necessarily towards others, although bad enough! But towards themselves! For example; A heavy smoker runs for a bus and then complains when they miss it, all the while coughing up there lungs! Or as you are walking around the local supermarket looking for something nice for dinner and all of a sudden you get this long, nose burning stench from the armpits of the man putting out fresh bananas! I know there are instances where some people have a medical problem, but surely not 1 in 4 'Tescos' staff members.
Obviously, these things i can & do live with as i still go to Tescos for my shopping. But what really made me angry and immensely saddened was the time when back in 1998 i wrote to the Haemophilia Society Newsletter explaining how i was feeling, how isolated i felt and wondered if they could publish my letter to see if there were like minded Haemophiliacs with similar feelings. I got several replies, all whom had Haemophilia, HIV & Hep C. All were of a similar age to me. It went quite well for a while. We arranged to meet with each other. Go out for dinner and just be blokes. It was nice, but i couldn't understand why although we had so much in common, we also couldn't of been more different in so many other ways. I would steer clear of things like smoking & alcohol completely. And recreational drugs too. But these lads didn't. Nor did they take their medication all the time. One lad didn't take his at all! And several months later they started to die of Hep C related illnesses! One by one! There were five to start with, not including me. I got to 3 deaths in a period of 2 years and decided i couldn't deal with it anymore! The rest of us gradually drifted apart and to this day i still don't know how the others are or if indeed they are still alive at all! I knew what was killing them, but just could not help! Surely they must've known they were putting themselves in danger? David, who was a year younger than me at the time had very similar interests as me. He was a big Star Wars fan & Loved music. So much so, he was the singer/songwriter of his own band. He even had a CD album made. Very talented. Such a waste. But having said that, he has probaby achieved more in his far too short a life than i will have in twice that time. I spend too much time & energy trying my best to keep myself healthy and live as long a life as i possibly can, i sometimes seem to forget about having fun & being 'just a bloke'.

Jason