Re: symptoms

Yeah there is.  The first time the fatigue hit me it put me on top of the
snow on the ground.  2. severe memory loss and perceptual disfunction, 3.
nueropaythy with nuero-muscualur egeneration, 4. fibromyalgia 5. associated
dental problem and loss.

In '97 I contracted both hep-c (didn't know untill 2001) and epstein-barre
mono.  I was winding up my graduate studies (completed a semester ealier,
but stopped short because of the big flood in N. Dakota), I couldn't read or
think; my g.p.a. went from a 3.72 down to a 2.98 and need a 3.0 (I went back
for a minor so I could go through commensment).

I literally couldn't think in English or remember what I'd done, like an
alzheimer patient I did things over that I had done.  The second term like
this I had an epiphany in a class.  The professor had three black boards of
notes to take down.  I hurried to write them down and when I was done, I
looked them over, I had done it twice.  I knew my academic days were over.
That was the worst year of my life, once or twice a week I would break into
tears.  The doctors kept telling me I was suffering from depression, I told
them I was depressed because I was sick and they weren't catching it; I was
right.

The biggest thing I choose to do was to blow off people who don't understand
a thing about being this ill.  How many times have I heard "but you don't
look sick" and on the inside I felt as if I'd brushed breifly the cloak of
death itself.  To them I'd say: " my Dad looked the best I'd seen him, the
last time, he was laid out in his coffin".  That statement drew alot of
mixed expressions and even anger, I'd tell them not talk about what they
don't know, it can make one appear ignorant.  The same is true for those who
say: "but you'll get better," well at 50 years old it's too little, too
late.  I went through all the stages of greiving (if you aren't familiar,
look the info up), finally found acceptance that it's a whole different
life.  I understand a late freind now, he'd told me his birthday was the day
he flew over a cliff on his motor cycle, because he was a different person
after.

When I was a teenager, I studied psychology, I wan't to know what was wrong
with me.  In college I found sociology and discovered I didn't have a
problem, the problem was other people.  Other people, and their expections
are now the problem.  I have to live this complex of ailment on a first
person basis everyday; they don't, and they have to accomodate me; I'm not
able to accomodate them.  Telling me that I have to change is ignorant,
assinine and thinking behind one's nose.  I don't have the ability now to
change to meet "others" expectations.

*** Do the best that you can, and to hell with the rest.  If you need to,
tell the s.o.b.s off; you'll feel better.  If you do the best that you can,
what more can one ask of oneself, be happy for that.  Find the new you, what
can you still do, or what can you find that you can do.  Let yourself go
through the greiving process, it's cathartic and needs to be done.

I take ultram, about twice as good as aspirin.  But once I started
peg-interferon / ribovin; I was given marinol because I was so sick, very
expensive stuff.  My gastro-enterologist says that half the patients quite
the meds and He though that I would have been one because of how bad I felt
on them.  Fortunately I live in Hawaii and have gotten my medical marijuana
permit and it helps.  It stopped the severe weight loss, I didn't need
anti-depressant any more or their hang-overs and I could cut way back on the
clonenapam (sic) for the muscle spasms and twitches.  It significantly
helped my heat tolerance and I felt much better about everything; and
basically I functioned better.  It's not that I'm attempting to find a high,
it's a ritual; like one's morning coffee (chemo is done now and I can even
drip regular again, 1 or 2 cups a day), I take my little brown jar and sniff
the flowers, put some in a pipe light it up and inhale, set it down and wait
a minute to see if that's good enough, and if it is, forget about it until I
feel bad again.  That pipe can last all day sometimes, as I said I not
looking for a high; fact is I don't know what people mean by that with
consideration of medijuana.  I guess it's like people who I knew in the past
that had to take pain killers, they said the medicine goes to the pain,
instead of to their head and doesn't make them high. Even when I was younger
and tried it, I didn't understand the whole hoopalaa about it.  NOTE; people
are different and what works for one, may not for another.  Also, if one is
a novice and has never used cannabis before it can make one feel bad or
sick, until one gets use to it; and I've known people who just couldn't
tolerate, like some people who can't drink alcohol.  Heck the first time I
had a beer it made me terribly sick too.


"nish in exile" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Are there others that have the exhaustion, the weakness, the shaking
> hands-and worse of all the deppresion?
> There are times when the attacks last for a week or more, when it
> seems as if the whole world has shrunk in to a tiny box-locking me in
> a prison.
> Added to the Hep C is the fact that I also have
> Fibromyalgia...serrious pain that goes on and on and is, well the only
> word that fits is-debillitating. The doctor has prescribed morephine,
> in a rather large does-600 MG a day. I have to be honest and tell you
> that it helps, but there are some side effects.
> What I want the most is something that will quell the effects of the
> Hep C, some magic pill that will allow me to function in the world. I
> know there is no such thing and that the only thing I can do is
> endure...but there is a serious deppresion that rides the coattails of
> the attacks. Nothing, and I mean nothing can tame that ravenous beast.
> It colors everything.
> Is it the same for everyone?
> How do the rest of you cope with this?
> They put me on anti-deppresants, but they don't seem to do much good.
> Just more pills I have to take every day.
> Is there some trick, ritual or mantra that might work?
> Just having this forum to speak in makes a diference;it shows me that
> I am not alone, that there are others that have the same problems and
> the same feelings that I have. It helps.
> Well. I got that off y chest and said my piece, any suggestions that
> you might care to offer would be welcome.
>
>
>                    self loathing
>                     self abuse
>                 worthiness promised
>                 but never recieved
>                    solid timbers
>                in the house of shame
>                  -----------------