Introduction Part I

[Guest guest]

Hello.

I'm Lion & Serpent93 and a newbie on your list. I have been lurking a few days

here now and thought that perhaps I should introduce myself. I really don't

know how to begin other than to give a brief biographical sketch so that you

will understand why I joined this group. I was born in the 50s, grew up in the

60's and 70's and was pretty wild, mostly smoking alot of pot and taking alot of

psychedelics well into the 80's. But I dabbled in what ever came by. I

straightened up my act and graduated from Cal with a degree in Molecular Biology

in the late 80's and went on to get a PhD in Microbiology from UC in the

early 90s. I am a bona fide virologist having spent a significant number of

academic years working with retroviruses and their role in cancer and AIDS

pathogenesis. Throughout the 70's to the 90's, I was a big pothead and a

die-hard 6-pack a day beer drinker. Weekends would be worse with hard liquor

thrown in to get the good buzz going. I was a hard working functional drunk.

Around 1992, I was just not feeling very well and it is hard to describe what I

mean, just sort of off. It was after a hard weekend of drinking whiskey in the

mountains of California. I went to the doctor and he did some blood work. He

called me a couple of days later and said my ALT and AST were pretty elevated

and he wanted to test me for antibodies to Hep B and C. I told him I would test

positive for B because I had been vaccinated immediately after the Hep B vaccine

became available because I worked with human blood and wanted the protection.

Well, I got the call that I was Hep C positive and asked him what did that

really mean. He said, " Probably nothing, we don't know much about the virus.

But your drinking days are over. " So, being the very smart (ass) scientist I am,

I drank as if he had never said that to me, never passed up a shot of whiskey or

a beer, and continued with life as `normal'. I really never felt sick, so why

change? On a routine visit to the same doctor, he said he wanted to test me

again because he knew a GI doc who was " curing " people with Hep C using

interferon and ribavirin. It had just come out and I said let's go for it. My

viral loads were about 2 mil, my genotype was 3, and my liver enzymes were in

the low 100's, not terribly bad.

So, I hook up with this GI doc and he says he doesn't think that it's worth even

treating me because my VLoad was low, my liver enzymes weren't terribly high,

and I had a relatively passive genotype 3. I told him I had insurance and two

sons and that I wanted to do whatever it took to prolong my life so that I could

be there for them. I insisted he treat me and he agreed. Prior to treatment,

he performed a liver biopsy and he was very encouraged. There was some minimal

lymphocytic infiltration and very minor, almost insignificant, fibrosis. So I

started the treatment. From day one, I felt like death. I had extreme flu-like

symptoms: body aches, chills, fevers, malaise, weight loss, thinning hair…you

name it. There was no pegylated IFN then (I believe this was in 1996 or 97), so

I had to tough it out 3 times a week. Within 4 weeks, my liver enzymes were

normal and I was virus-free by PCR…very encouraging. So, I continued on and to

combat the severe depression, I drank even more. Very wise move there! Mr. PhD!

I completed my 24 weeks in hell and was still virus-negative by PCR with normal

liver enzyme levels and even 2 months post treatment. Hey!! I was home free!

My regular doctor had me follow up with him 6 months post-therapy and did a

blood test. VLoad was 4 mil and my liver enzymes were 4x above normal. My GI

doc and my PCP were shocked, but it is what it is. My PCP said to just get a

blood test every 6 months and a biopsy every 5 years so that we could track the

progression, but not to worry because I would probably be okay.