This past year has brought a lot of changes in my life. I went from working a mere five hours a week to working full time in January. The early weeks were more challenging than I bargained for and although I intended to chronicle the transition here in my blog, I found myself too tired. As the weeks went by, I grew less tired and became stronger. I embarked on a counselling course at the local nursing college. I started being able to do things around the house after work and went for weekend countryside walks. Just as life was beginning to feel like life again? I got a hep B jab.
That jab in late May changed everything. I suddenly ? and I mean suddenly - felt like I had hep C again. Fatigue, brainfog, the joint pain, they all came back. I continued working, falling asleep on the couch at 6:30 thinking, ?If I sleep through the weekend I?ll be alright?. Three weeks and a lot of sleep later, I was signed off work at my quarterly blood draw and haven?t worked since. After the Wiz told me off for not saying something sooner, he ran all sorts of tests but my hep C was still undetectable, my viral load low and my CD4s were high. Everything was as it should be. Six weeks later, we looked at autoimmune issues but drew inconclusive results. The verdict ? a possible autoimmune type response to the hep B jab. The sentence ? keep an eye on it.
It is now twenty three weeks since I had the jab and I?m still not back to where I was before, but mainly where the brainfog is concerned. My joints are still sore some days but overall they?re feeling better. Although my stamina needs work, my fatigue is dissipating and that?s all good. But the brainfog? It has been persistent and shows little sign of clearing up.
What makes it so upsetting is I thought I?d beaten the brainfog. The worst of it was during the treatment. Swimming through treatment smog made me realise what I had previously thought of as fog was merely mist on a summer morn. It took a long time for the effects of interferon to wear off and I worked damn hard to rid myself of the lingering fog. I read, I wrote, I kept my mind active. It took six long months for the smog to lift before I could go to work part-time, still achy and foggy but improving all the time. Over the course of the next year, I got stronger and clearer bit by bit until I was offered a full time position. I gave it a trial for a few weeks in December and you know the rest ? the bit leading up to the hep B jab.
After two years climbing out of the treatment smog, it suddenly seems as though the improvements had never happened and quite frankly my dear, it?s pissing me off! It?s something that I am finding it increasingly difficult to cope with. Sore hips I can handle but give me my mind back! Earlier this week I had a long talk about me and my fog with Dr. Mas, my doc?s right hand man. Our discussion gave me a lot of food for thought and I?m determined to get to the bottom of this. Want to know how? Stay tuned....
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