Aa
To: Hector SF
I just wanted to start a post to send you a BIG God Bless and say, I am so happy to hear you have started treatment today. I read your post to Cindy and it made me feel good to hear that. Again, God Bless and I know He will because you are such a caring and unselfish individual to help so many people. There has got to be days that you feel so bad but yet you go above and beyond to soothe the souls of so many. Just know there are people out here that really appreciate you! Thank you from GoGG or Tammy
Please keep us all posted on how your feeling and doing!
Please keep us all posted on how your feeling and doing!
Just wanted you to know that this support family would not be the same without you. Thank you so much for all that you do.
Might I also add well wishes to you Hector, thru Tx and SVR.
....Kim
Might I also add well wishes to you Hector, thru Tx and SVR.
....Kim
Good luck to you Hector
I will be your biggest cheerleader!
You were the first one who made me realize how important and life changing having a support group is. I have lots of great friends and wonderful family - including my son, my Biggest Advocate! But it's different when you talk to people who have faced similar battles.
I always remember that first support group that I attended at the transplant wing of the hospital and your comment when we left
"I get to walk out of here"
That's it in a nutshell. You gave me hope when I had pretty much given up.
Thanks for that perspective and putting me on the road to finding out everything I can about this disease so that I can finally conquer it.
~Linda
I will be your biggest cheerleader!
You were the first one who made me realize how important and life changing having a support group is. I have lots of great friends and wonderful family - including my son, my Biggest Advocate! But it's different when you talk to people who have faced similar battles.
I always remember that first support group that I attended at the transplant wing of the hospital and your comment when we left
"I get to walk out of here"
That's it in a nutshell. You gave me hope when I had pretty much given up.
Thanks for that perspective and putting me on the road to finding out everything I can about this disease so that I can finally conquer it.
~Linda
Happy to hear you are being treated. I send people to this site just to hear what you have to say.Currently I am also on same tx, but your posts were most helpful in 2012 when I was on SOC. Take care Hector!!
I try to find the right words to thank you and encourage you, but I am emotionally ferklempted (I think this is the spelling). I am not of the chat room, blog, facebook generation, so I very shyly found my way to medhelp when I was so lost and ignorant. Without this community, and you particularly, Hector, I would not be Undetected at EOT right now, and hoping for SVR and/or next step in treatment plan. I know what that should look like thanks to your role in educating all of us. I can almost feel you hand held out through the computer when you respond to a question send latest data, trial conclusions, and expert analysis or cheer-lead hanging in on a worrisome day. You elevate the content and tone on this site so that not one of us any longer wonders about what we will find here. You need only to get back a portion of what you have given away and you will have your day of chest-beating over the last breaths of your beast. Sounds like a great day.
Thank you very much for your very kind words.
I am feeling very positive that this just may be "the beginning of the end" of my 44 year relationship with hepatitis C and its not so life-affirming consequences. Irreversible cirrhosis and liver cancer are two that come immediately to mind.
On November 16th of last year my cirrhotic, cancerous liver was removed and I received my new, cancer free, hep C free, 36 year old, female, deceased donor liver. And it is only thanks to her and all of the many people that help me stay alive until I received her liver that I am still here to even have the opportunity to treat the virus again at all. So already I have had more good fortune than anyone can ever rightly expect.
I'm doing the best treatment currently available for me and hope for the best. Time will tell how it works out. For me my recurrent hepatitis is only one part of my recovery process. While I respect it and the damage I have seen it do to myself and others I don't fear it or let it interfere with my enjoyment of life. I am content just to be alive with or without hepatitis C, frankly. Looking at how far we have come with treatments and at what will be available to treat this virus very soon I know I will be cured of the virus one way or another in the near future. I have no doubt about that.
During treatment I will be monitored weekly with blood tests (a post transplant benefit) as well as having my monthly transplant labs.
Of course I will continue to facilitate our hep C support groups here at my transplant center and will continue to encourage and support patients on our liver transplant waiting-list with our liver transplant support group, help those treating their hep C pre and post transplant and visit with hospitalized folks going through some tough times pre or post transplant. It is my privilege to be able to help others by letting them know that not long along I too have walked in their shoes.
I am the lucky one. I am still here because of what others did to help me get through some pretty desperate times. So it only seems natural that now that I am in a position to help others, I do.
Thank you all.
Hector
P.S. In two weeks I will be representing our UCSF liver transplant program at a transplantation medical conference here in SF. It will be a gathering of transplant doctors and staff from various transplant centers from around the country. I will be sharing my experiences and thoughts along with patients from our other transplant programs, lung, heart, kidney, pancreas, intestine etc. I am privileged to be able to represent the over 3,000 liver transplant alumni from our center. (Including about the 50% of patients who needed transplants because of the consequences of chronic hepatitis C infection.)
I am feeling very positive that this just may be "the beginning of the end" of my 44 year relationship with hepatitis C and its not so life-affirming consequences. Irreversible cirrhosis and liver cancer are two that come immediately to mind.
On November 16th of last year my cirrhotic, cancerous liver was removed and I received my new, cancer free, hep C free, 36 year old, female, deceased donor liver. And it is only thanks to her and all of the many people that help me stay alive until I received her liver that I am still here to even have the opportunity to treat the virus again at all. So already I have had more good fortune than anyone can ever rightly expect.
I'm doing the best treatment currently available for me and hope for the best. Time will tell how it works out. For me my recurrent hepatitis is only one part of my recovery process. While I respect it and the damage I have seen it do to myself and others I don't fear it or let it interfere with my enjoyment of life. I am content just to be alive with or without hepatitis C, frankly. Looking at how far we have come with treatments and at what will be available to treat this virus very soon I know I will be cured of the virus one way or another in the near future. I have no doubt about that.
During treatment I will be monitored weekly with blood tests (a post transplant benefit) as well as having my monthly transplant labs.
Of course I will continue to facilitate our hep C support groups here at my transplant center and will continue to encourage and support patients on our liver transplant waiting-list with our liver transplant support group, help those treating their hep C pre and post transplant and visit with hospitalized folks going through some tough times pre or post transplant. It is my privilege to be able to help others by letting them know that not long along I too have walked in their shoes.
I am the lucky one. I am still here because of what others did to help me get through some pretty desperate times. So it only seems natural that now that I am in a position to help others, I do.
Thank you all.
Hector
P.S. In two weeks I will be representing our UCSF liver transplant program at a transplantation medical conference here in SF. It will be a gathering of transplant doctors and staff from various transplant centers from around the country. I will be sharing my experiences and thoughts along with patients from our other transplant programs, lung, heart, kidney, pancreas, intestine etc. I am privileged to be able to represent the over 3,000 liver transplant alumni from our center. (Including about the 50% of patients who needed transplants because of the consequences of chronic hepatitis C infection.)
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