skin crawls and time crawls.....

Inspired by nanooska whose blogs and website I point you towards, below, have been thinking (again) about an aspect of HCV treatment which was intensely engulfing – the passage of passing minutes, days, weeks. Like Jenny and her liver, I could not bear to mark the time. That only extended it and made me screamingly hyper-aware. So I had a sort of mental trick of pretending to myself that each day was only just one separate day or experience within. Normally one wants continuity in life. Chuck it into storage while on treatment.

I was both fascinated and appalled by time distortion effects on tx. the brain fog (dense) for me, in itself meant that I could not engage in many activities to distract and ease the relentless hours. this is so for you, for many I am sure- and i did believe I lived 48 weeks with every 24 hour period. half a tx per day (that's my maths anyway) as for the angst: I certainly had as many different varieties and themes for that as I had ribas. I think hep c and tx induces it. And dark “stuff” general along with hugely heightened perceptions and reactions. much of my own angst was linked to the passing of time, the damned unremitting sheer slog through passing hours and days. I called that version of angst my MacBeth syndrome. ("tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day ....") like the scottish prince, I too was bored, even with my own angst. Yet the mostly painful and disturbing thoughts or distorted fixations continued regardless of whether I wished to turn attention to more healing or cheerful possibilities. Since I had no real choice or control over intention and no over-ride mechanisms available. So each thought in itself became very bound up with the agony of time crawling – thoughts would stretch my brain to point of physical discomfort, and seemed to be also measured in seconds and minutes, like a clock in the head. I do know many will recognise or remember this. (One post –tx friend once commented, when I had written on the time factor horrors, that recalling it made his spine turn cold) This time warping and brain fogged mental taughtness is at least as nasty as many of the aches, joint pains and other physical discomforts of the disease and it’s tx. And often a HELL of a lot more so…..

How do you actually do this – just keep on going? People on treatment sometimes ask me. (ok, often ask me, actually!) My answer? After 48 weeks of tx, I still don’t know …… I just did it since the only way out was through. Either that or back to living with the damned disease which was not a choice worth considering, since it had already bashed my life and functioning self to bits in any case. Most of us who do treatment can’t really say how….. other than that simple hint for a lifetime: one day at a time. Stay in the present. Keep things as simple and clear as possible. Tell it like it is, wherever you can. Forgive self and life, whenever you can. Reach out for friends and connection – lots. And find stepping stones. Something that makes each day feel like there was a moment of reality, a gift or a treasure. Whether that is a phone call to someone easy to talk to, a piece of music you love, laughing at something silly on tv, watching a pretty sky….. whatever nourishes your spirit. Beyond the fog and the confusion: you are blessed and you are whole.
With love and healing prayers, eva day.

Jenny's blog (hcv and tx.) http://jennysliver.blogspot.com/

other blogs: anna annmarou.blogspot.com

Ian
Hex
(see my profile list)