Request

Dear Heppy
every time i had been down to hospital i asked them for a print out copy of my blood results and later on biopsy result, but each time either something came up, there was no time or computer was not the right one or some other excuse,
on my latest visit i asked for the records yet again and this time i'd been told i couldn't just get them, that i had to send a request in writing to hospital's freedom of information,
so today i did just that,
i asked for the whole content of my file to be forwarded to me,
the only thing i can't really understand is - why it is such a big deal to get access to something that is so fundamentally concerning my person?
i think that this kind of information should not be withheld from anyone or made difficult to obtain when their health is involved,
but that's not the kind of world we live in, is it Dear Heppy?
me

Pontius Pilat

Dear Heppy
when i wrote to you Now What? letter here's what's been happening,
i rang up kilkenny hospital to request my medical file and move on but instead i got informed that i had another visit with the consultant because he wanted to further discuss tx with me,
to me it meant that he couldn't just let it lie or go away hence a decision in my case had to be reached - either tx or not tx,
and i was ready to hang up on it all and move on - that was the boomerang that hit me in the back of my head and the rug pulled from under my feet,
i knew he would want to talk me out of it so i prepared myself as beast as i could, gathering all the crucial facts and numbers from various studies,
on the day of the visit i got seen immediately even though i was early,
dr gary had two students in with him to watch and learn,
and learn they did how certain medical professionals are able to lie and twist the facts the way it pleases them,
- i've been told that soc tx carries more risks than benefits,
- had i more liver damage i would have been treated,
- i've been told that the goal of tx for hcv is not to clear the virus, it is to stop existing damage from progressing, and what about trying to prevent the damage from happening in the first place?
- poor quality of life ie symptoms have no meaning as a point in favor of treating,
- it has been discredited that shorter 24 week duration of tx may cause as equal side effects as the longer 48 week one,
- apparently tx with addition of PI for him pushes the balance of risk vs benefits towards benefits,
- therefore again with flourish i've been offered trial tx with telaprevir in april in beaumont hospital up in dublin, but when i have pointed out that trial being double blinded and randomized i have 50% chance of actually receiving telaprevir and 50% chance of ending up on the soc tx anyway which kills logic of the whole proposition,
- i've been told that trials are highly supervised, follow strict rules and offer best care for side effects, in response i couldn't help but ask if him saying that means that patients in his regular hospital care don't receive same standard of care, attention and the rules are not as strictly followed? the subject has been changed immediately and i didn't get my answer to that question,
Dear Heppy those were only several of blunders that had been told, now onto lies
- when asked again about svr rates for tx with PIs the answer was 70%, how interesting that on first visit it was 25% and when confronted dr gary without batting an eyelid denied he ever said otherwise,
- when asked, straight up he said that he could refuse me tx and when informed that my legal source claims otherwise he got a bit flustered, i wonder why....
and finally let me share two heresies of his that amused me boundlessly,
- having low level of iron means that virus won't do any damage to the liver in the future (i have low iron hence the fairy tale),
- the earlier in life the virus has been contracted the lower the viral load becomes with time (apparently my 4.7 million means i couldn't have had you for more than a few years),
and by the end of the visit, in between the lines he let me know that irish hepC medical circle is very small and they (hepatologists) all know each other very well.... - i think something like this is called a threat,
so here Dear Heppy i give you dr gary courtney - gastroneterologist of st. luke's hospital in kilkenny, ireland, a Pontius Pilat that washed his hands off of me without a tiniest courtesy of being honest as to real reason why,
draw your own conclusions,
me

I'm Hot

Dear Heppy
thermogenically speaking i am hottest ever,
recently i started noticing that i need less layers of clothes, gloves have to come off more often and i keep the hat on only to protect my ears from the wind, otherwise it would be gone too,
and before you might suggest anything of sort - no, i am not undergoing any form of menopause,
my being cold all the time started sometime in my mid teens, i had to dress up like an onion (we're talking here 4 - 5 layers in winter), do a lot of physical activity to warm up a little and my hands and feet had always been painfully frozen,
i thought thyroid was to blame, i was even on thyroxine for a while but it didn't help,
so what happened? you might ask,
well i started taking vitamin D,
main reason was that it boosts immune system, by proxy has antiviral properties and as most recent studies show it aids in viral killing during tx, it also helps with insulin resistance and diabetes, joint and muscle pain, improves depression and reeves up thermogenic side of metabolism,
the actual list of what vit D could be helpful with is impressively long - click to see for yourself,
i'd been taking it for about five months now and its positive effects have crept up on me slowly as the deficiency was being gradually lessened, first my knees would stop hurting and i'd feel a bit of more mojo within but it had to take this long for the thermal effect to kick in and become noticeable,
contrary to previous belief high doses of vit D are not toxic, some 20-30 min in the sun produce a dose of around 10,000 IU and it's safe to take up to 5,000 IU daily without medical supervision,
it's shocking how many people are deficient in vit D, even those living in sunny places and currently recognized norm in fact is only high enough to prevent getting rickets but too low to cover for true body requirement,
vitamin D has changed my life around Dear Heppy,
it's made me feel sunny warm inside,
me

Illegal

Dear Heppy
in republic of ireland if there are no medical contraindications, hepatology consultant has no right to refuse standard treatment with pegylated interferon 2a/2b and ribavirin for hepatitis C unless there is an unstable home situation or patient is drinking alcohol or recovering from alcohol addiction,
always good to know right Dear Heppy?
me