No Time to Sit Down...

Benches get depressed too...


That's what it honestly feels like. Where did the last 365 days actually go? They just seemed to flash by as fast as a bolt of lightning hitching a ride on the back of my bike! Ok.....that is basically what the last year was made up of.........Cycling and biking and mountain biking and kayaking and a little hiking and some more cycling and thats about it really.....oh, and my 50wks of Hep C tx. Bloody hell it went by so fast!

Today is the one year anniversary of the day that I started tx for Hep C. I was scared, I was looking forward, I was worried, I was eager, I was curious, I was not bothered in the very least, I was bothered totally.............But the main thing was is that I was ready.....totally ready! They told me to expect the worst because I would probably experience some really tough shit. I had two weeks to get ready and prepare myself for tx they said. Little did they know, I had been preparing myself (unbeknownst to me) for the last 20 odd years. No smoke, no drink, plenty of exercise and with strong thoughts that I would someday be the only Haemophiliac to have been infected with HIV & HCV left alive on the entire planet! That way of thinking seems to have worked for me. Take the viruses by the bollocks, make friends with them & prevent them from killing you! Thats been my job since I was chucked out of college back in 1987 for not attending, because I was fed up and shit scared of dying......I also had just met a girl (Hi Becky) who took my mind off things & who made a very nice chicken with beansprouts in black bean sauce;)

So, on to the here & now.

Also, today is the day that my fellow Haemophiliac buddy finishes his 48wks worth of Hep C treatment. No mean feat at all! And he already has the brilliant news that he, like me, is still undetectable:) Well done Chris! Bloody well done buddy:) You can find his Blog over on the right hand side.....the top one listed in the 'More Hep C Blogs' section.

Still not looking forward to the dentist next Wednesday! I reckon I will go for an extraction (if at all).....get it out of the way and be done with it for good! But I don't even want to do that! Right now, I am really thinking about postponing the appointmet as the tooth in question isn't hurting at all. Not the best idea I have ever come up with I know, but if I ain't in excruciating pain, I keep my mouth shut;) I know I should get it done, but why change the habit of a life time? I have always been that way in that 'if I'm not in any really bad pain or coughing up blood or brown phlegm or finding blood in my poo or wee or a chest infection or ear infection', then I don't say anything to anyone. I can be a right old stubborn sod at times, but hey, it works for me.

Right.....do you remember the ride I did last Wednesday? The 33 miler giant figure of eight right around where my flat is? Just get a map of Richmond Upon Thames and draw a figure 8 around and joining Richmond & Bushy Parks, sticking to the Thames tow-path where you can and that was basically my ride. I live right in between the two parks right on the Thames. I had worked the mileage all down on paper from last Wednesday and since getting a proper trip computer at the end of last week, I did the exact same ride this Wednesday to see how accurate I was with the old fashioned technique. So after 3hrs 39mins I had actually completed 35.18miles. Two more than I did last week. I completed it slightly quicker too.....by six minutes. Probably had something to do with the fact that I was wearing my new blue Medic-Alert bracelet. It kind of acted as a rocket booster;) The weather was almost the same, what with it having rained the previous night quite heavily, the puddles were dodged with a certain grace and it was sunny too. The main difference was where there was a complete lack of wind (a good thing) last week, this time I was not so lucky! Half of the 35 miles I had a head wind! It was hot work but I am pleased that I did it again and a little quicker too. According to my trip computer, my little legs were pedaling for exactly 2hrs & 59mins. My average speed was 11.8mph, max was 25.6mph (almost undoubtedly down one of the hills in RP) and the temp was a very warm (for cycling) 12 degrees C! Good job I had shorts on:) It was a Lovely ride again. It is amazing how different it was......having said that, I did come across the same white Deer as I did the week before in BP, and they were in the same bloody place.....I got photos this time;) The sunset was beautiful again and the Swans were out in force as usual on the Diana Fountain in BP. And also I noticed that the midges are beginning to come out again along the river. Got to be careful not to breathe the little f*****s in and choke to death! Wether the paramedics know about my Haemophilia status or not isn't going to help me with a mouth full of flies;)
My legs were just as restless during the night and as I had managed last week, I kept the muscle cramps at bay too. It was harder work doing just 18 miles in the Surrey Hills on Sunday afternoon! My legs are ready for more right now. Good job too, as Lee & I are due for a night ride tonight up in the hills of Surrey.....if the rain stays off that is......otherwise it will be the Bushy half of the figure 8. Richmond Park is closed still from 8pm for Deer culling.

Anyway.....enough boring you to near death with eating flies and the complete lack of wind etc;) What about this little experiment that I have begun? Thats right......I started this little experiment last night to find out which of my HIV drugs are responsible for my evening side effects. I am hoping it is just the one pill and not a combination of all three of them. I am going to leave one of the drugs out of my scheduled 20:27pm drug regime and pop it at midnight on it's own and see if I experience the sides in question between 20:27 and midnight & then take the left out drug at midnight and see if the sides in question arise in the three hours they usually last for......does that make sense? It does to me;)
I left out the Sustiva (effavirenz) last night and it looks like I found the culprit already. None of the usual & quite obvious sides between the times that I normally experience them. And then Whooosh! About an hour after the single midnight Effavirenz pill popping, there they are! In all their spaced out whooshing along, blood pumping, mostly undescribable glory! I must continue with the experiment though, just to make sure. I shall put the Effavirenz back in it's normal time slot tonight and swap it with one of the others and make notes etc. But it already looks like I found the one......truly unmistakable sides! I was thinking what would be better.......going through the sides at the normal time in the evening or from midnight onwards? I might have to think about moving my entire drug regime times forward a few hours and take the Effavirenz nearer to 2/3am (when I usually fall asleep). I will have to bring it up with the Docs at the RFH. They don't even know about these sides that I have been experiencing for the last 7 years. But for the last several months the sides have been beginning to piss me off a little. I wanted to wait until I had finished my Hep C tx before I did any experiments etc.....In case they had an effect on the HIV drugs. I knew the sides in question weren't caused by the Interferon/Ribavirin because I have been experiencing these sides for years. Maybe they got a little worse towards the end of tx, maybe not. Or maybe I am just thinking about them more theses days? I shall write another post in a week or so when I have collected all the data.


A little bit about this posts photograph.

It is basically a wooden bench. The sort you would find in an English park or street. The sort that Loved ones have erected in memory of a dead relative. They have little brass plaques screwed onto the front with a little message etc inscribed onto it. This one however I saw floating downstream in the murky waters of the Kingston to Teddington Lock stretch of the river Thames on Wednesday afternoon during my bike ride. In fact, on the direct opposite side to where I took the photo from are the flats where I live. I'd like to think that the bench uprooted itself that sunny morning, fed up with life as a bench and smelly farty bottoms, graffiti, cigarette burns, 'Sharon Loves Darren' knife carvings and just jumped into the deep, dark, cold water of the river Thames to die. But in reality it was most probably pulled out of the ground and thrown into the river by yobs! Yobs who fart all too much, smoke too many funny fags, carry far too many fat marker pens and a who pack a flash flick knife or two to impress the girls........and almost certainly calling themselves Sharon & Darren Asbo! The bench that just wouldn't sit down!



Jason






(C) JPT 2007