Episode 75: Update on Harvoni Treatment for Hep C

Well, sports fans, it's now been a month and a half since I started Harvoni to treat the Hepatitis C I contracted during a blood transfusion in the 1980s.

So far, side effects have been few, though I did have one mortifying experience with uncontrolled diarrhea in a public place. Nothing is worse than walking through a fast food restaurant trying to get to the bathroom before a major "accident" and not making it in time. But that wasn't the first time that has happened. My theory is the medicine kicked my liver issues into high gear while the virus tried to fight off its attacker, and that was the lovely result.

The diarrhea has calmed down a lot since those first couple of weeks on the stuff, I'm happy to say. I hope that's the LAST time I ever have to deal with that problem in public!

Now I have a new issue--my fingernails have turned brittle and have begun cracking and splitting. Ouch! My fingertips hurt as I type. I'm keeping them cut short, but they still split painfully. Ugh. I also worry that my hair, already thin, is getting thinner. But I suppose far worse things could be going on, and I'll be happy if this virus is killed off.

I've been reading forums online, which is a dangerous thing to do. I learned that long ago when contemplating going on Effexor for my anxiety. If I'd believed everything I read, I never would have gone on a drug that transformed my life from one of debilitating anxiety to relative self-confidence and a clearer perspective. I'm not saying it's a perfect drug, but I'm grateful for it.
And the same will probably be true for Harvoni.

The scariest thing so far about the forums is that a lot of people claim to have side effects long after stopping the drug. Now, supposedly, the Harvoni is out of the system two days after finishing it. So it seems weird that folks would be having side effects when it's no longer in the system. But we do hear about long-term effects of radiation and other treatments that happen long after the treatments have stopped. We see the ads from lawyers about such effects. I really hope nothing like that will pop up for former Harvoni users. I hope I didn't just trade one death sentence for another. On the other hand, we all live under a death sentence. It was worth the risk. I think.

I'll check in again if I notice anything else as I go through treatment. I'm halfway through and keeping my (painful) fingers crossed that I'll be one of the 95-percent-plus patients who are cured of this nasty virus.

Episode 74: Anxiety and Endings

I started this blog some five years ago with an episode on anxiety.

I don't think I come across, necessarily, as an anxious person, and as I explained in that first episode I never considered myself anxious until "later" in life, maybe even in my forties. This wasn't too bright of me, because I'd had nearly crippling anxiety after starting new jobs more than once by then. I'd been a shy, awkward kind of kid, and though I sort of blossomed in high school I've never felt overly comfortable among people I don't know. I still don't, but I've learned to fake it better.

On the other hand, I'm not much of a worrier on a day-to-day basis. I can relax fairly easily if I do not have any uncomfortable tasks hovering in the near future. This situational anxiety, however, has gotten worse and worse over the years and, at this point, I'm pretty sure it has to do with my neurodegenerative condition, many of which affect patients' ability to get motivated and start new tasks. (These tasks need not be uncomfortable, difficult, or negative, in fact. Just switching from one mode to the next becomes incredibly difficult.)

Tonight, however, I'm facing one of my least favorite tasks, and, hence, I'm writing my blog--er, rather, producing another episode of The Mary Dell Show.

Although my various diagnoses and related severe energy/sleep problems forced me to give up full-time work a few years ago, for the past couple of years, I have been teaching one section of English 101 (freshman comp) at the local state university in town.

This is the perfect part-time job for me. All those years of school have not been utterly wasted. I can still impart my wisdom (such as it is) to a fresh new crop of young adults making the transition from home to their first year living with roommates, doing their own laundry, managing their own time, and facing college-level courses. Young people at this age inspire me. The world has not yet beat their ideals out of their systems, as I often fear it has mine.

Before my illness got the better of me, I was a full-time college English professor, a job I'd aspired to when enrolling as a freshman myself at the age of thirty. I had two little boys at home as I pursued my dream. "Why would you become an English major?" I was asked again and again. I was old enough to know, wasn't I, that no one made any money as graduate in English?

Actually, as I've grown older I've become far more interested in the sciences, particularly ethnobotany, but I still do not think I'd trade my English degrees. I was a book nerd long, long, long before that was ever considered cool. I've written stories and poems and journals since I was a child and even wrote three (unpublished) novels in my twenties and thirties.

I love the written word, especially the beautifully written word. Oh, I know all about postmodernism--I was a graduate student at the height of "high theory" in literary and cultural studies during the mid-1990s. I know privileging certain types of literature over others is conservative and old-fashioned. But I love my "Great Books." And I also welcome other types of literature into the canon.

But I digress. The point is, I mostly love my job as a teacher. Mostly. Frustrations exist, as any teacher will tell you. But the worst part of the job, for me, is what is happening tonight: I despise grading. Not just because it is a chore, but it is a chore. Because of my energy issues, I am not on campus more than about four hours a week. I have to bring my students' papers home with me to grade. So here I sit. Computer on lap. TV on for company. BAD study habits, I know. The TV should be off, but the sound of voices on low volume is comforting. Grading is a lonely job.

I finally decided that one reason this final night of the semester is so difficult for me is that it is an ending.

Now, I am not the "mother substitute" type of teacher at all. I maintain a fairly distant demeanor in class. I'm friendly, and I prefer to keep things on a comfortable basis, but I rarely tell stories about my life outside of the classroom unless it is directly relevant to the topic I'm discussing. I used to tell more stories when I was a full-time teacher. I was younger then; perhaps I've grown more serious over the years. I used to like making students laugh. For someone who'd grown up morbidly shy, the power of owning a room is intoxicating.

But all that was before I got so sick, and before my eldest boy got so sick, and before I lost my full-time teaching job because of being so sick, and before I had to give up working full-time as a successful grant writer because of being so sick. I guess I'm more serious these days.

And so I look at this stack of papers and think about the seriousness of my task. Each one of these papers represents a young person who is hoping for an A. Very few of those papers represents an A paper. I have worked with struggling writers for fifteen weeks. What I can say is that those papers are going to be far, far better than the first papers these students turned in back in September. I can say that many aspects of their writing has improved, in some cases dramatically.

What I can't say is that they demonstrate a fluent understanding of punctuation and grammar--though, in nearly all cases, the student's punctuation and grammar has drastically improved over the semester. Are all the papers free of major errors, such as those having to do with correct sentence structure? No. Well, from what I can see, correct punctuation and grammar is mattering less and less these days. I'm horrified by this, of course, but it's a reality. But this still doesn't mean punctuation and grammar don't matter. I'm not ready yet to throw in that towel.

I try to impress upon these kids, for that is what they are--yes, they are adults, but they are young adults, and I'm nearing sixty, so to me they are kids (and quite often act like kids but, at other times, amaze me with their maturity and strength)--that, in fact, grammar and punctuation do matter. And, off the Internet, in the "real world," I do think that is true. Companies value employees who communicate well in person and in writing. And correct grammar and punctuation are vital for producing clear, well-written materials.

Knowing punctuation and grammar is my superpower.

It's not going to save lives. But writing might. Writing has. 

I want my students to have these tools so that they can go forward with powerful personal agency and be advocates for themselves and others.

So tonight is difficult. I want to see these students succeed, but I know I'll face papers that have errors that will take away from strong content. I'll face papers in which students haven't correctly cited a source, one of the key skills they are supposed to learn in my class and one that I've stressed since day one. I hope that, in all cases, those problems will be minimal and will not cause the student to fail this last of four papers. They cannot revise this last one. This is it.

Whatever the reason a student does not learn basic sentence structure--poor teaching/curriculum in schools, lack of interest/motivation/study skills by students, learning disorders, whatever--those problems cannot be entirely "cured" in fifteen weeks. And that is painful for me.

So many of my students this semester worked hard. They revised papers that did not pass the first time, in some cases for each of three previously assigned essays. They care about what they are doing. These are the ones I want to give an A just because of how far they have come. That, alas, is not what my employer expects me to do, and I know that maintaining academic standards is important. It still kills me.

And this is it. Since I only teach this one class, I won't see these students again. I'm a little sad about that. And so I'm anxious. I don't want to judge these kids. I just want to support them. Damn, I hate grading. Better get to it.