Black!
The water was black with what looked like coffee beans
sinking slowly. I stared into the toilet bowl in
disbelief. Well I thought, I’ve never seen that
before. I felt another wave of nausea overtake me as I
chokingly brought up more black lumpy liquid.
Shit!
I didn’t feel too hot as I precariously made my way
towards my sleeping wife. I woke her gently and tried
to calmly tell her I was just popping out to the
hospital as I didn’t feel too flash. She was alarmed
but I managed to placate her in her somnolent state
with promises of future calls made to her from my
mobile.

“Make sure you ring” was her parting shot.
The hospital was quiet it was 2 am and as I explained
the colour of my regurgitations to the duty sister and
denied all other strange symptoms that were offered as
aid to my diagnosis I realised I really didn’t feel
very well.

A few interns briefly talked to me with similar
questions and an endoscopy was decided upon as the
next course of action, in the morning when the
surgeons arrived.

I woke up in a room full of machines and leads coming
off me everywhere. I felt drugged and lethargic. My
wife was by my side trying to compose a look of
calmness but succeeding only in stifling the absolute
panic that threatened to take over her.
She had been called in during the procedure and told I
only had a fifty fifty chance of survival as they
didn’t think the bleeding was going to stop. She was
petrified.

I was too out of it to take in what she was telling me
but managed to grasp some of the essentials, two units
of blood, internal oesophageal bleeding, portal
hypertension. The seriousness was lost in the
scientific jargon.

After another day in expensive scare I was admitted to
a ward, where a specialist laid out the probable cause
of the bleed. He was waiting for tests to come back
but he was sure and assured by the fact that I had
used intravenous drugs over twenty years ago that I
doubtless had Hep C and cirrhosis of the liver and I
was lucky to be alive but I probably wouldn’t be for
long.

I spent a few days on Nil By Mouth with a drip in my
arm and feeling very weak. I swayed between thinking I
didn’t have anything wrong with me and I would be fine
and staring death in the face and what it meant to me
or not me soon.

The tests came back on the day I was leaving Hospital.
The doctor took me into his office and told me that it
confirmed I had Hepatitis C. I broke down and cried, I
didn’t think I would but it made it so definite so
unappealable. I cried for me I cried for my family.
What would Liz and the kids do without me. What would
I do without me.

They told me Hep C on its own and if caught early
enough could be treated but because I had the varices
the chances were that I had severe portal Hypertension
caused by cirrhosis of the liver, he wanted me to have
a liver biopsy and sign up for the liver clinic and
read up on their new Interferon Riboflavin cocktail,
which I already had a bit.

So the grim reaper was hanging around me sharpening
his scythe, I couldn’t help but think of Terry
Pratchett’s character in his discworld series. All the
emotions I possessed seemed to want to force
themselves to the front of my awareness but as usual
mainly fear and guilt the true catholic emotions the
ones I felt safest with, my security blanket lay
comfortably on top.

I really didn’t spend much time in the “why me” zone
as I had basically been trying to kill myself for the
last few years, but I did use the disease as a crutch
to forgive myself for this behaviour.

Its hard to explain how it feels to be told you are
going to die as my feelings changed rapidly over the
next few days and still do. Some of the early stuff
was real grief for myself and what I had and hadn’t
done with my life. It was scary in the fact that now I
had no excuse to put off things that I always promised
myself I would do. I tried to recall all the “one day
I’ll” promises I had made to myself over the years.
The next minute I’d feel as if I’d been kicked in the
guts and the ground I was standing on was no longer
supporting me.

When I thought about it I sometimes felt relieved,
unburdened now I was free to do as I wanted there was
no point in just carrying on with the sham my life had
become but what did I want out of life? The 64 million
dollar question what was life about what was my life
about.

Liz was great she cried and told me how much she loved
me and how I wasn’t allowed to die, she couldn’t live
without me like I couldn’t live without her. We would
beat this disease. She didn’t take it on but gave me
the space to make my own decisions about how I was
going to cope with it with her help if I needed it.
I didn’t hate the Hep C virus I didn’t see it as the
enemy within, I was my own enemy I knew I had caused
it and I knew I could cure it but it was not going to
be easy.

Oh I had had signs alright, my palms had been bright
red for years (no one knew the significance of this)
depression , drinking more because of it, anger ,
anger and more anger at life at the wife at the kids

I had to change and grow and change and grow and
change.

So I went back to work after a week off, well a
leopard can’t just change his spots cause he is dieing
can he? Yes he can.

I started on a a liver cleansing diet and lost weight
then I went to see a naturopath and started taking
heaps of supplements. The treatment helped a lot and I
lost 20 kilos to boot but the prognosis was not really
a cure just prolonging death.

I had always been interested in Chinese medicine so I
decided to try it out and went in search of a good
practitioner I found a Chinese woman who started me on
herbs, they were foul but they seemed to help, they
eased my depression and lessened my fatigue.
I paid a few visits to the Liver Clinic but found them
to be very negative. I had a liver biopsy
And I got 4 out of 4 for fibrosis, top score, they
gave me 3 months to 2 years (that was 2 and a half
years ago).

They just seemed to want me on the Interferon circus.
They reminded me of the way IBM or Oracle sell their
products by destroying the opposition. They didn’t
like to talk about any side effects, they never
mentioned that it was at least two injections at the
hospital every week for a year and when I asked for
more information they replied “what do you want to
know?”

I found them to be condescending pricks. I have a
degree in Physiology and Biochemistry and so I
understand what they mean by proof and trials and all
the other bullshit that only rich drug companies can
come up with. I asked if they knew that Hep C was to
all intents and purposes a patented disease, they
laughed and said you can’t patent a disease. Well they
may as well have, no one can perform experiments on it
without huge patent costs, or deals with future
profits. I became very disillusioned with the whole
state of western drug producing corporations using
doctors as their drug pushers.

Western medicine has a very Myopic view of what a
disease is and how it is an external pathogen that
must be destroyed. This is propagated because of the
huge dollars that it secures mainly American
corporations The Chinese see it more as your being is
not in tune with itself and needs change, your life
needs to change Your body is giving you a message from
your inner self.

To me from what I have read Interferon is a nasty drug
it works like chemotherapy in a way that tries to
poison every living thing within your body and if they
get the dosage right you may live and the virus will
die. This is incredibly primitive and if the Chinese
or other alternate healers suggested this type of
approach they would end up in jail.

Every time I visited the liver clinic I would spiral
into depression for days afterwards.
One doctor even said when I talked of meditation and
getting fitter “it may make you feel better but it
won’t do you any good” I mean how distant from the
reality of a whole being was this guy. Life at any
cost is meaningless, they could do better but its all
down to dollars and putting up with the doctors fear,
the fear that they might not have done all they could
by the book and so be judged by their peers, they
don’t care how their patients judge them “its for
their own good” is their battle cry. This battle cry
has been used many times in history and on later
reflection has always shown to be a false statement it
is always for the good of the person uttering it
rather than the receiver of the cure.

They are doing the best they can ?? are they then why
try convince everyone that science is infallible that
they know everything about life when they know so
little, they cant even define it by their own rules.
Where is the feeling where is the love where is the
individuality, everyone that has Hep C is not the
same, they will not all respond to the same treatment
because Hep C is a symptom not the cause.
I feel sorry for doctors, they have it tough they
don’t get time to think, at school they have to swot
to get high marks then at Uni they work them harder
and they have to pass “How to get a God complex” 101.
Their internship at hospital is absurd then they
specialise then the drug companies keep up a constant
barrage of more not always useful knowledge. They
can’t possibly see the wood from the trees because
they are kept so busy, just how the corporations want
them. To stressed, fearful and busy to think, to feel
to live to experience themselves as beings.
I decided I would follow my heart and stay well clear
of the western solution.

After a six months more at work. I just got up one day
and thought there is no point in working myself to
death literally towards death, so I quit.
I talked to Liz and she agreed, so we decided to sell
up in Sydney and move up the coast to Byron Bay. I
spent the next few months renovating the house we
owned well the bank owned a lot of it. We sold and
went up to Byron and realised the house prices were
the same there as in Sydney so we looked around and
fate found us a multiple occupancy property, 60 acres
between 5 houses. We new we were going to buy it as we
turned into the drive.

I found a Chinese practitioner up here that did
western medicine as well and he recommended a Chinese
doctor in Sydney whom I also see every few months. He
still rants on about signing up for Interferon and
putting my name down on the liver transplant waiting
list but he still gives me the herbs.

To me now my life is a journey to find out why I
exist, why I am alive and what my life is about. I
read a lot and have lots of alternative treatments,
nearly all of which help in some way. I meditate, I
take my herbs and my Noni, I grow my own Bio-dynamic
food, I spend time with my wife and kids and feel more
alive than ever before.

My inner journey is only really just starting and the
more I learn about myself the happier I become and the
more I realise how little I know.
Hep C saved my Life.