Just felt like bragging today! Hope I did not jinx myself… haha

A big thank you to all my praying friends who through the past 18 months have prayed to the Lord on my behalf. Thank you to my family and especially my wife Carol for your untiring support during this long and trying treatment. Most of all thank you to God who showed me mercy! You see treatment for hepatitis C is notoriously difficult, and the side effects are so debilitating that many patients decide to stop therapy rather than endure the consequences. In addition, treatments are curative in less than half the people who receive them. I was able to finish with God’s help. Thank you Jesus!

What is next? I need to do as all of us need to – eat healthy foods, get some exercise and stay away from stress!

Thanks for those who have shown support for me in getting my health back in order after the long 2009 I had on some strong medicines.  I have a long way to go, but remained determined. At age 50 and having a 2 year old son running around the house I just have to (Lord willing). I would love to see him grow up serving the Lord Jesus Christ and he needs proper training along the way, of which I am responsible for.

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I weigh in at an totally embarrassing weight of 257 pounds. My goal is 205 by year end and <225 by summer camp in July. I am off to a good start, walked on the treadmill this morning for 30 minutes for a distance of 1.5 miles. It is a start. May I a year from now look like I did in 2004 as the picture with my daughter Hannah on the left reveals.

So what lies ahead? Six months from now I will get tested again for the viral load. If it is undetectable at that point will be in remission (technical term is SVR sustained viral response). So June 2010 will be a big day for me. Please join me in praying for SVR!

Hepatitis C is a serious disease, many have it and do not even know. Please consider getting tested! One of the best sites on the Internet for information and support is a site I found called HCV Support – the site is loaded with information and informative videos. The forum is full of very helpful and compassionate people. They helped me greatly.

Thank you for all that showed me great support this past year – I appreciate it much.

A big thank you goes out to all that have helped me this year to get through this. A special thank you to my dear wife Carol who has been the greatest to me during this time. I have been grumpy and irrational many times to her and she bit her lip and walked away. She helped me with the injections each week and put up with my crazy food requests. Thank you Carol! Also I would like to give a great big thank you to my Pastor, Pastor Art Kohl (he is also my employer at the church) he has been outstanding to me and gave me great latitude with work this year. His support has been unending and he has shown me great tolerance and understanding. Thank you Pastor Kohl.

I am looking forward to getting back on tract in 2010 – things like Summer Camp at Commonground Baptist Camp and my ministry in the prison and at Church. Both where put on hold in 2009. I have learned much this year and I hope I can use that knowledge to help others for the rest of my life.

Sorry all for abandoning you. I have really struggled with this TX and did not want to say anything about it for I had nothing good to say. BUT I thought about it and I do have much to be thankful for. First, being able to even get the treatment. Second, it is working – undetectable at week 4, 8 and 24 so far. Thankful that I have a great wife and family (8 kids) that have really helped me along the way so far. Thankful for my friends that give me the “space” I need at this time. Thankful for my boss at work (he is my pastor too as I work for a church) in being 100% totally understanding about my struggles with this tx. He spoke with some people he knew who did bad on the tx and who it failed for, so he knows. I have been to work only one day or so a week since being on treatment. I get much of my duties done from home on the computer.

Thankful I was able to get to Niagara Falls last week for two days with the family – see my blog post on the adventure:
http://frankbroughton.us/blog/archives/467

Tomorrow will be my 33rd injection, so only 15 weeks to go after that. After week 24 my hemoglobin was low (10.4) for too long so my doctor cut back the ribaviron. It went up (11.1) by the next month but not enough. He cut back the ribaviron once again. It went up to 11.6 but wants it up to at least 12.5. I get some blood work done tomorrow so we will see if the second cutback has worked.

My last day of the ribaviron will be on Christmas day. So looking forward to that. It has been a long road so far with some very bad days along the way and many sleepless nights. There are days when I feel lousy but I am able to pretend that I am not – the days when I cannot even pretend I feel good are killer.

Thank you to the numerous members here who sent me words of encouragement though PM’s! I just answered a bunch of them.

I will add here I too am thankful for all of you who have mentioned to me that you are praying for my treatment and health. I do appreciate it very much. A couple of my aunts have been a great encouragement to me to keep going. They both have had close family members on the same TX, so they know of the ordeal.

Christmas day! What a day that will be if the Lord wills! and then I would turn 50 on January 9! I think I just might shoot off some fireworks in celebration. A word of caution: I have not succeeded yet in this treatment there is a percentage chance the virus can come back – but God is good and He knows of my uprisings and downsitting, knows the amount hairs on my head (getting easier to count these days haha) so He is in charge of my life.

Good news is that the viral load is still undetectable! In other words – I am viral free. If I am like this six months after the last shot I am considered cured. The technical phrase is SVR or sustained viral response. I am doing great in this aspect but we have not reached that point yet. Having cleared the virus at week four and keeping it cleared at week 24 gives me a ninety percent chance of reaching SVR.

As I spoke about on my June 2oth update I had one of the meds cut back (Ribaviron) to see if my hemoglobin count would go up. It did go up, which is good, but not nearly enough. It went from 10.4 to 11.1, it should be around 12.5 while on the treatment (it was 16.8 when I began the treatment). So, once again my doctor cut back my dose. I started at 1400 mg a day and I am now at 800 mg. He thinks it is still enough to keep the virus on the run. All the other numbers are looking good, some very good. My ALT is 30 (this is important as mine has always been elevated and it is normal now – was 240). ALT is a liver enzyme and an elevated count indicates a liver being damaged.

Please pray my hemoglobin count goes up to the required count or higher. Because of it being so low I am very fatigued all the time and also short of breath.

Now the question, how am I feeling? I can only say it changes quickly. I may wake up and feel fine and one hour later very bad. The side effects of this medicine are brutal for sure. It makes my skin very dry and itchy, kind of feels like bugs are crawling on me. The areas where I get the chemo injection are very red, and dry. I constantly have “stomach issues” and it feels like a pill is stuck in my upper throat all the time. The dreaded cough I had for a few month has resided ninety percent. I am very happy about that. The cough drove me nuts. Mentally I am doing okay, about a third of the way into the treatment I was ready to throw in the towel. It was a battle to get to the point I am at right now.

I miss being able to do what I do at summer camp. This week was the Junior week our church went to. I cried when Carol pulled out of the yard with Lisa and Frankie as she took them to church for the bus ride to camp.

I want to start getting back to posting some of my digital photography and others items on my blog here. Those that are subscribed to receive updates via e-mail on my condition I hope you do not mind seeing some of my other types of posts. My doctor wants me doing some exercising so I will have to force myself to get out and do some hiking. Of course I will have my camera with me. Recently the EPA e-mailed me and asked permission to use one of my pictures in one of their upcoming reports, I gladly gave them permission.

Phew…..   I only have 21 weeks to go after tonight’s shot. I end the treatment and two weeks later will celebrate my 50th birthday – Lord willing of course!

Thanks for your prayers my dear friends, without them I could have NO WAY made it this far.

I will try to give more details soon. Thanks for your prayers.

Yes, I am doing good numbers wise but this treatment continues to beat me up pretty good. I am always short of breath. If I bend down and up quick or slow I get pretty dizzy. The pills are really nasty (I have four of them staring at me right now that I have to take). They have many side effects. A nasty dry cough that just will not go away, plus I have a creepy dry skin rash kind of feeling on my whole body. My taste is totally messed and no food tastes good. I have lots of trouble eating. (Good thing – I think, is that I have lost 23 or so pounds so far). My smell is messed up and I have a constant dirt taste in my mouth and the same as far as smell. Of course the worst side effect of all is feeling very fatigued and flu like most every day. I am getting to work a day or two a week but it wipes me out after that. Pastor Kohl and FBBC has been most gracious about that. Praise the Lord for that. It helps remove much stress. I have been doing real good depression wise. Depression is a very popular side effect seeing how the side effects are so nasty and the treatment just seems to never end – 48 weeks!

Thank you so much for those who inquire about how I am doing. That means so much to me. Every little bit of care and every prayer is helping me continue on. Before I started treatment I interviewed eight people who took this treatment and only two of the eight were able to finish. It is so important that I complete the whole 48 weeks. Determination alone will not get it done – but the prayers and care of my friends will help me do it!

THANK YOU!