Aa
George
I post this because I read your post a few down as to confusion about God and life relating to your disease. A lot of people responded. Thinking my response would get lost at the end of that lengthy list I post here. George, I look in the mirror and say these words, "I don't know." I repeat them over and over. I don't know why I contracted hep C. Did God let this happen? I don't know. Who knows the mind of God? His ways are not my ways. His thoughts are not my thoughts.
I try not to believe the lies that Satan places in my heart. Guilt, confusion and blame are a few. That is the first step to my recovery in my humble opinion. I do know this George. When I fall from God's graces it is because I steer away from God's rules into the world's ways. God leaves me to my own devices at that time.
I am sorry, I will pray for you and others.
Dale
I try not to believe the lies that Satan places in my heart. Guilt, confusion and blame are a few. That is the first step to my recovery in my humble opinion. I do know this George. When I fall from God's graces it is because I steer away from God's rules into the world's ways. God leaves me to my own devices at that time.
I am sorry, I will pray for you and others.
Dale
I just wondered by, and read all the posts. Man, what true emotion, and honesty. It is hard for people to be honest now a days, and I respect that more than anything in the world.
George, you have children!! This is more reason than enough for life! I wish I had someone to look upon, as my own creation. Hug them, and tell them you will always be there. Remember that it is the drugs, not you.Right now, you are facing the beast, and you have to fight.
I know what you are going through, as I feel the same way at times. I only did one week of tx, and thought everthing that you feel right now. I cried, I questioned GOD, I questioned the love of my wife, I questioned my reasons to live, I blamed my parents, I looked for every reason to just die, but saw something that was right in front of me, and overlooked, LOVE. Hug your kids, and your wife!! Ask the Dr for AD's and possible options to manage through. I felt angrier than you could ever imagine, but sader at the same time. I am 26, and have to face this. I do not have the option to wait around, as damage is severe. I also face the bad geno of 1a. Week before tx, blew back out, and more than likely will be out of work real soon!! I have every reason to take the easy way out, but I still push on. I talk with dr's, and do research on my disease, I come to this forum, with the wonderful heart felt strangers that lend advice, and I LOVE my wife!!We are fortunate to be alive, and that is what I am starting to just understand. Many people do not get the opportunities that we have, or even get to experience life itself. My wife works in labor and delivery, and watches babies born dead all the time. Or babies that have severe diformaties, and defects. You and I are lucky that we have experienced life, and are able to be given the opportunity at a cure. Many are not.
I have posted before, that I have faced death many times. I was dead for over three minutes, no pulse, DEAD!! I drowned, with three other boys, in the darkness of a cave in Jamacia. When my eyes opened it was dark, and I could see nothing. I looked around, and could see where alittle bit of light was hitting the water far in the distance. I swam torwards the light, and only remember waking up on shore. Bloody, and confused. People all around me screaming and crying.There ARE reasons to live. I thought I was invincable, but have been humbled! Maybe we are being tested, who knows, but we will get through. Look for the light in the distance, and keep swiming towards it!!Man, my heart goes out to you.
George, you have children!! This is more reason than enough for life! I wish I had someone to look upon, as my own creation. Hug them, and tell them you will always be there. Remember that it is the drugs, not you.Right now, you are facing the beast, and you have to fight.
I know what you are going through, as I feel the same way at times. I only did one week of tx, and thought everthing that you feel right now. I cried, I questioned GOD, I questioned the love of my wife, I questioned my reasons to live, I blamed my parents, I looked for every reason to just die, but saw something that was right in front of me, and overlooked, LOVE. Hug your kids, and your wife!! Ask the Dr for AD's and possible options to manage through. I felt angrier than you could ever imagine, but sader at the same time. I am 26, and have to face this. I do not have the option to wait around, as damage is severe. I also face the bad geno of 1a. Week before tx, blew back out, and more than likely will be out of work real soon!! I have every reason to take the easy way out, but I still push on. I talk with dr's, and do research on my disease, I come to this forum, with the wonderful heart felt strangers that lend advice, and I LOVE my wife!!We are fortunate to be alive, and that is what I am starting to just understand. Many people do not get the opportunities that we have, or even get to experience life itself. My wife works in labor and delivery, and watches babies born dead all the time. Or babies that have severe diformaties, and defects. You and I are lucky that we have experienced life, and are able to be given the opportunity at a cure. Many are not.
I have posted before, that I have faced death many times. I was dead for over three minutes, no pulse, DEAD!! I drowned, with three other boys, in the darkness of a cave in Jamacia. When my eyes opened it was dark, and I could see nothing. I looked around, and could see where alittle bit of light was hitting the water far in the distance. I swam torwards the light, and only remember waking up on shore. Bloody, and confused. People all around me screaming and crying.There ARE reasons to live. I thought I was invincable, but have been humbled! Maybe we are being tested, who knows, but we will get through. Look for the light in the distance, and keep swiming towards it!!Man, my heart goes out to you.
u r right and The Nazarene defeated death for that we shall all receive Life Everlasting Eternal Love and forgive us our trespasses. Ever merciful Merci 4 all your assistance Mister. I know not wot I would have done without your recent help so from heart i say MOST Grateful 2 u mate
This thread is the best! It's good to see all the survival, tx and testimonies. My gastro-guy is still waiting on results from my 3rd blood-letting. AST=368 and ALT=718. Yesterday I rec'd a call to come back for an ultrasound due to abnormal findings on my recent mammogram. All this after my GYN takes me off 7 yrs. of HRT! Gastro-guy says Hep C is likely (it clearly states that I'm "repeatedly positive" for hep C) but that other things can cause these elevated levels. Others have suffered worse and I am trying to stay positive. Thank you all for posting here!
As i understand it Christ defeated death and his sacrifice gave us life eternal. Have faith.
Hey George by the way, i just noticed you said you were on "Pegintron"...talk to your dr..."Pegasys" seems to be much easier on people...
George, my heart and prayers go out to you...i was also so confused by getting the hep c "death sentence"...(though now i realize that for many people it will NOT be a death sentence)...
but at the time that is how i saw it...something that was going to kill me...i was really depressed and didn't know how to deal with it...all those psychological,emotional,issues came up that had to do with dealing with "facing death"...even though i didn't really know that was what would happen to me...but alot if not all people deal with these sorts of emotional issues when they find out they have a major illness...i'm sure people who are told they have cancer go through this as well...
all this is to say you may need to give yourself permission to grieve about getting this illness...and permission to go through the emotional steps it takes to be able to deal with it in a more constructive way...obviously killing ourselves, does not solve anything...it only insures imminant death...and depression doesn't accomplish our desires either, it only cripples us... but,we probably will go through it anyway...
the only thing that accomplishes our real "deep down" desires is learning how to have joy and peace in our given circumstances...getting to the point of being able to enjoy what life on earth you are allowed and accomplish the task given for you to do durring that time...like raising your beautiful children...
there where two things that helped me get into a more contstructive way of thinking that would help me and not hurt me...
one thing was to realize the truth that everyone is going to die at some point,some people die young and some old...and people's loved ones die everyday and no one is ever pleased with thier death...death hurts all of them and thier families...
so i echo what the above poster said,"why not me ???"
...there are people's babies that are dying and haven't gotton to even begin thier lives...so why not me??? am i more special than any of them??? the answer is obviously no...so we can not say we are being treated unfairly...and that it is not fair that we have this illness...
it is fair...if someone's baby gets cancer and dies at 3 then why shouldn't i get liver disease and die at 43??? Death and Disease is open for anyone to get on this earth...death does not discriminate it choses whomever it wants...all of us...someday...
and to be sure death is and always will be satan's desire for us and not God's...if you read the Bible in the book of Genisis you will discover that death was not in God's original plan...it was something that the human race, by following satans lead, did to themselves...it was a concequence of sin against a Holy God...it was right to have a concequence to sin...otherwise God would be accused of accepting sin...we all want consequences for sin...that is why we put murderers and thieves in jail...we know that is the right thing to do...
george i pray for your relationship with God...i pray it will recover...God is very good to us, despite our sin...He offers us a way out of sins consequence..."Eternal life"...
it is helpful to look at His "whole plan" for us...we were never meant to live here forever...this fallen place earth, is only to be temporrary... our real home is in Heaven, according to the the scriptures...and that is where God sees our "real future"...we keep thinking that this earth is suppose to be it!!!
JERIMIAH 29:11
" 'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope".
this is His desire for all of us...a future and a hope!!!
This leads to the second thing that helped me...and that is, i realized that i will always have the same amount of time that God allowed me from the beginning...
in other words...i may be just finding out that i am sick and may die and may only have so much time on earth, but God has always known all "my days"...they were written in His book from before time... and since God has this plan for me spoken of in Jerimiah 29:11,stated above... He will allow me the time it takes to accomplish it...so i will always have plenty of time to do exactly what God wants me to do on this earth and after...that is a promise...
i may not have time for "my" plans or "my will" but i deffinately will have time to accomplish "His plans for me!!!" and that is all i really want anyway...enough time to do what i was created for...and you my friend will have enough time to do what you are here for too...and that is the good news...the hard part is letting go of "our" plans in favor of "God's plans...and that is where the faith comes in...
i was so relieved to realize this and it gave me such peace and hope...because my heart so wants to do God's will anyway...and i trust and have faith in Him, above all... so i believe with all my heart, that He has the best plans for me...
i pray George for you that God will bring you to the point of peace...and restore your relationship with Him... i pray that you will be able to trust Him again, with your whole heart...
i also know how these meds can mess with your mind and for that i would not waist any time and go straight to your dr and tell him how you feel and ask for an AD...this can rebalance the chemicals being messed with in your brain by the tx and restore some light at the end of the tunnel... it takes a few weeks for the right AD to fully kick in...and zanax is good for anti anxiety...sounds like you have that too...
by the way what stage and grade is your liver in??? i pray for a complete healing for it...
Cling to God!!!...He does Love you and your kids...so much!!! That is a promise!!!
I Pray you'll come to trust in Him!
but at the time that is how i saw it...something that was going to kill me...i was really depressed and didn't know how to deal with it...all those psychological,emotional,issues came up that had to do with dealing with "facing death"...even though i didn't really know that was what would happen to me...but alot if not all people deal with these sorts of emotional issues when they find out they have a major illness...i'm sure people who are told they have cancer go through this as well...
all this is to say you may need to give yourself permission to grieve about getting this illness...and permission to go through the emotional steps it takes to be able to deal with it in a more constructive way...obviously killing ourselves, does not solve anything...it only insures imminant death...and depression doesn't accomplish our desires either, it only cripples us... but,we probably will go through it anyway...
the only thing that accomplishes our real "deep down" desires is learning how to have joy and peace in our given circumstances...getting to the point of being able to enjoy what life on earth you are allowed and accomplish the task given for you to do durring that time...like raising your beautiful children...
there where two things that helped me get into a more contstructive way of thinking that would help me and not hurt me...
one thing was to realize the truth that everyone is going to die at some point,some people die young and some old...and people's loved ones die everyday and no one is ever pleased with thier death...death hurts all of them and thier families...
so i echo what the above poster said,"why not me ???"
...there are people's babies that are dying and haven't gotton to even begin thier lives...so why not me??? am i more special than any of them??? the answer is obviously no...so we can not say we are being treated unfairly...and that it is not fair that we have this illness...
it is fair...if someone's baby gets cancer and dies at 3 then why shouldn't i get liver disease and die at 43??? Death and Disease is open for anyone to get on this earth...death does not discriminate it choses whomever it wants...all of us...someday...
and to be sure death is and always will be satan's desire for us and not God's...if you read the Bible in the book of Genisis you will discover that death was not in God's original plan...it was something that the human race, by following satans lead, did to themselves...it was a concequence of sin against a Holy God...it was right to have a concequence to sin...otherwise God would be accused of accepting sin...we all want consequences for sin...that is why we put murderers and thieves in jail...we know that is the right thing to do...
george i pray for your relationship with God...i pray it will recover...God is very good to us, despite our sin...He offers us a way out of sins consequence..."Eternal life"...
it is helpful to look at His "whole plan" for us...we were never meant to live here forever...this fallen place earth, is only to be temporrary... our real home is in Heaven, according to the the scriptures...and that is where God sees our "real future"...we keep thinking that this earth is suppose to be it!!!
JERIMIAH 29:11
" 'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope".
this is His desire for all of us...a future and a hope!!!
This leads to the second thing that helped me...and that is, i realized that i will always have the same amount of time that God allowed me from the beginning...
in other words...i may be just finding out that i am sick and may die and may only have so much time on earth, but God has always known all "my days"...they were written in His book from before time... and since God has this plan for me spoken of in Jerimiah 29:11,stated above... He will allow me the time it takes to accomplish it...so i will always have plenty of time to do exactly what God wants me to do on this earth and after...that is a promise...
i may not have time for "my" plans or "my will" but i deffinately will have time to accomplish "His plans for me!!!" and that is all i really want anyway...enough time to do what i was created for...and you my friend will have enough time to do what you are here for too...and that is the good news...the hard part is letting go of "our" plans in favor of "God's plans...and that is where the faith comes in...
i was so relieved to realize this and it gave me such peace and hope...because my heart so wants to do God's will anyway...and i trust and have faith in Him, above all... so i believe with all my heart, that He has the best plans for me...
i pray George for you that God will bring you to the point of peace...and restore your relationship with Him... i pray that you will be able to trust Him again, with your whole heart...
i also know how these meds can mess with your mind and for that i would not waist any time and go straight to your dr and tell him how you feel and ask for an AD...this can rebalance the chemicals being messed with in your brain by the tx and restore some light at the end of the tunnel... it takes a few weeks for the right AD to fully kick in...and zanax is good for anti anxiety...sounds like you have that too...
by the way what stage and grade is your liver in??? i pray for a complete healing for it...
Cling to God!!!...He does Love you and your kids...so much!!! That is a promise!!!
I Pray you'll come to trust in Him!
Hey George. I know how you feel. No - I do.
I went until week 17, hiding my feelings from the Dr. I was telling him about the quick rage and anger, but nothing else.
I thought I would be in control - I could tell if I could not handle it, screw the Doc.
That almost cost me my life.
I was very depressed, very upset (you know the kind I mean), and angry.
(I am on anti depressants)
I also take Xanax as an attempt to tame the "beast" that you spoke of. I took more and more as the rage continued to grow.
After that would not help, I was so upset I started drinking beer. (I do not drink since my diagnosis 3 years ago)
After about four beers, I decided that all of this **** was no longer worth putting up with.
I went upstairs to get some old Oxycontin from a shoulder break aobout a year ago. I poured out a handful and chewed them up, washing them down with more beer.
Then I laid down to die. My wife was taking a bath at the time and thought she had heard me go upstairs and get some pills.
Thinking this was unusual since our pills are kept downstairs, she came looking for me.
She was able to get me to the emergency room in time for them to get the Oxycontin out of me and save me.
If she was taking a shower I would not be typing this. I had certainly ingested at least 100+ mg of that stuff -well enough to be fatal.
All of this behavour from someone that would have sweared on a 1000 bibles that I NEVER would do anything like that.
Treatment changes the way you reason. You do not know that you are losing it when it happens to you.
From your post, it is starting to happen already. Do not hide your feelings from the Doc.
Oh, and all of this was after stopping for 5 weeks. Don't tangle with this stuff.
I am also looking into my Hypoglycemia as a contributing factor.
Do you have Hypglycemia George?
Hang in there...
I went until week 17, hiding my feelings from the Dr. I was telling him about the quick rage and anger, but nothing else.
I thought I would be in control - I could tell if I could not handle it, screw the Doc.
That almost cost me my life.
I was very depressed, very upset (you know the kind I mean), and angry.
(I am on anti depressants)
I also take Xanax as an attempt to tame the "beast" that you spoke of. I took more and more as the rage continued to grow.
After that would not help, I was so upset I started drinking beer. (I do not drink since my diagnosis 3 years ago)
After about four beers, I decided that all of this **** was no longer worth putting up with.
I went upstairs to get some old Oxycontin from a shoulder break aobout a year ago. I poured out a handful and chewed them up, washing them down with more beer.
Then I laid down to die. My wife was taking a bath at the time and thought she had heard me go upstairs and get some pills.
Thinking this was unusual since our pills are kept downstairs, she came looking for me.
She was able to get me to the emergency room in time for them to get the Oxycontin out of me and save me.
If she was taking a shower I would not be typing this. I had certainly ingested at least 100+ mg of that stuff -well enough to be fatal.
All of this behavour from someone that would have sweared on a 1000 bibles that I NEVER would do anything like that.
Treatment changes the way you reason. You do not know that you are losing it when it happens to you.
From your post, it is starting to happen already. Do not hide your feelings from the Doc.
Oh, and all of this was after stopping for 5 weeks. Don't tangle with this stuff.
I am also looking into my Hypoglycemia as a contributing factor.
Do you have Hypglycemia George?
Hang in there...
God doesn't make bad things happen, but He allows it for a reason. All Hep C aside, I am the 6th member of my immediate family who got cancer.....2 died....and no, we didn't live near a toxic waste dump ha-ha!. God drew me closer to Him and for the first time EVER, I know that peace that goes without understanding. God's plan is always for our good, tho we might not see it now. I've been able to help others with breast cancer - answer questions, making hats, giving away my wig. It's been 4 years now & what a privelige & blessing it is to be used by God. God can use you too. He can strengthen your faith, making this journey easier.....or we can try to "make it on our own" and make it harder. It's a choice, one that can grow you into an even better person.
I'll be praying for you, George!
As I remain,
Lookin-up
I'll be praying for you, George!
As I remain,
Lookin-up
I have always been told to ask "Why not me"?
I look for the blessings in every situation.
Sometimes the only good thing I can find is that I can share my hard times with someone else and let them know that they are not alone. And if I've made it through something, I can be hope for another.
tx sucks, so does Hep C.
It kills some people.
When I found out, I didn't know that much about it. I wasn't too terribly surprised that I had it once I learned more.
My first question to my doc was "That can kill me can't it"?
But the thing was...there was a solution. There is a drug that can treat this. It's not easy, not fun, but a lot easier than some other diseases and the tx for them.
It was a lot easier for me to accept cause I got it doing something I shouldn't have been doing anyway.
But..there is still so much we don't know.
The bottom line for me is, yes I educated myself about Hep C and tx. I only wish I hadn't given the whole damn thing so much POWER in my life. Too much of my energy went into focusing on what I was going through and less on my blessings.
My new everyday saying is..."It just is what it is".
Peace
I look for the blessings in every situation.
Sometimes the only good thing I can find is that I can share my hard times with someone else and let them know that they are not alone. And if I've made it through something, I can be hope for another.
tx sucks, so does Hep C.
It kills some people.
When I found out, I didn't know that much about it. I wasn't too terribly surprised that I had it once I learned more.
My first question to my doc was "That can kill me can't it"?
But the thing was...there was a solution. There is a drug that can treat this. It's not easy, not fun, but a lot easier than some other diseases and the tx for them.
It was a lot easier for me to accept cause I got it doing something I shouldn't have been doing anyway.
But..there is still so much we don't know.
The bottom line for me is, yes I educated myself about Hep C and tx. I only wish I hadn't given the whole damn thing so much POWER in my life. Too much of my energy went into focusing on what I was going through and less on my blessings.
My new everyday saying is..."It just is what it is".
Peace
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