2nd ATTEMPT AT TREATMENT

The start of this 1^st treatment was also accompanied by the start of weekly/fortnightly visits to the hospital for blood tests, to measure how successful the drugs were in combatting the virus, plus of course the personal check-ups to see how you were coping. Not only did I not cope well, it turned out the drugs were having no effect on the virus, making me a non-responder, and as such, I was withdrawn from that treatment after 9 weeks. So it was back to the drawing board and in the meantime, carry on rewardless with all my other medications until a new programme to treat the virus could be found.

This arrived a year later on Sept 6 2011 when I was placed on a second treatment that repeated same old drugs plus a new one. The thought of this made me a little apprehensive because besides the excitement of taking the same medicaments again, there were apparently additional delights attaching themselves to the taking of the new one. So delightful in fact this new combination proved too toxic for my body to withstand. A rash associated duly arrived and quickly spread over my body. In addition I became really ill, so much so that after a routine hospital visit for blood tests, we were phoned by the doctor the following day when the results came and told to get to the hospital urgently.

I re-entered hospital in Gloucester on Sept 26^th with something called ‘deranged electrolytes’. I think that meant my kidneys weren’t feeling too well after the barrage of new drugs. But if you are going to be rushed into hospital for some reason, what better than ‘deranged electrolytes’ to enter with! I thought that sounded pretty cool. I stayed in hospital until discharge on Oct 4^th by which time I was considered stable enough by the doctors to go home again. I was pretty much unaware of what had gone on in there as I spent most of my time drifting in and out of the drug haze of the treatment and recovery medicines. They had virtually turned me into a zombie.