Well, a few hours ago I took my last dose of Ribavirin and this morning I took my final pill of Sofosbuvir. Three months of taking daily doses of heavy duty medication is finally done, and now my body is as loaded as it will ever be with drugs. The saturation of the drugs has increased as I’ve gone through the last three months, and now it will take six months for everything to finally clear out.
People always ask me if I’m feeling better. Truth is, I’m feeling pretty horrible. I’m getting better but feeling worse, though the “feeling” will soon start to coincide” with with “getting”. The side effects of Sofosbuvir are things like insomnia, headaches, loss of energy, brain fog, etc. and the Ribavirin has side effects of it’s own (nausea, dry skin like crazy, etc.). I’m definitely rolling on all fronts, meaning that I haven’t had more than five hours of sleep per night in the last three weeks, I have had a headache going on a month, have about as much energy as a coma-patient, etc. I definitely still will covet continuation of all the faithful prayers I’ve been receiving…and want to thank all the thousands of people around the world that have been praying for me over these last two years. The end is somewhat in sight now, and I cannot wait to be get back to “regular life”.
I get a viral load (to see if there’s any detectable Hepatitis C in my blood) tomorrow and won’t get the results for several days, and then I’ll get another viral load in three months and six months. When the results of the six month viral load test come back, I’ll be officially declared “cured”. Until then, there is a (ever-so-remote) possibility that Hepatitis C may somehow be hiding out in the dark corners of my body.
Our family isn’t really having Christmas this year as we’re all so horribly exhausted from this ordeal. We’re thankful that the kids are too young to remember anything, and we’ll still see friends and some family over the holidays and have Christmas festivities, food and decorations vicariously through them.
Please remember to lift up my wife in prayer. She’s struggling with what I call “sympathy insomnia” (which most likely means that I wake her up when I get up), and having three toddlers to take care of has worn her down to the point that she really needs a vacation from life. She’s soldiering on, but she’s at the point now where it’s fairly easy to depend on the Lord since there’s absolutely no “self” left. That’s a somewhat scary place to be though.
Also, please remember to pray for our two little ones. Dad has a short fuse these days and get snappy at them, which breaks dad’s heart and make the house tense sometimes (or leads to increased misbehavior as dad gets emulated against his will). Also, dad is really too tired to do much of anything with the little ones, so that makes like difficult for them.
Hopefully the Lord will grant me a swift and decisive return to energy and the ability to sleep through the night soon.
Thank you again for all your prayers, and have a blessed and Merry Christmas!
Until Next Time,
Lyndon “Still going but not sure why” Unger
P.S. – I’m still editing the book, but it’s proving slow and difficult with my brain fog and sleepiness. I’ve got Grammarly to help me now, and that’s helping. Still, if it weren’t for my current state, the book would have been done weeks ago.
