It Begins

Wednesday my husband had a liver biopsy in preparation for his Interferon/Ribivarin treatment. The last few days have been horrible. Nothing had prepared me for it. Not the doctors, not the literature, not the information on the internet. Nothing. We were told that it was a minor procedure, similar to the colonoscopy he'd had the previous week. We were expecting that he would have a little discomfort, but not the full-on pain that he experienced. And I was not expecting that I would be allowed to stay with him until they actually performed the biopsy. Which meant that I was with him in what resembled a ICU ward. But we survived.

It has been three days now and he is finally feeling almost normal. He still has soreness; so much for it being a minor procedure. Well, maybe for some it is. I read - after the fact - that pain is experienced in only 30% of patients. Guess he's in the 30%.

He was hurting so bad last night that I found myself spending a Friday evening basically alone, trying to be quiet, while he slept. I was worried, and depressed. And lonely. I wonder now if that is a preview of the next six months as he undergoes this treatment. I have a tendency to depression lately (probably from my diabetes) and I wonder if I am going to spend the next six months alone and depressed. Someone told me that I need to remember the end result, that John will be cured of the hepatitis, but that is easy to say when they are not the ones going through it.

Well, this blog is about my faith, and I guess it is going to be tested in these next few months. I barely passed test one, so let's see how I'll do with step two.