Music and Hep C: My Journey to Getting Cured

When I am out and about in my day, I like to crank my radio up and get inspired by music. Depending on my mood, I love Jazz, Classic Rock, Country, Pop, R and B, Christian... I guess after listing them, I see I just love music. I have found in my loneliness, hurting, fearful days that I lean on music to calm me. I can remember driving to the clinical trial office, when I was trying to qualify for a trial to cure my hep C, that my hour drive there turned into a jam session.

My treatment journey

There was one day I was very confident of getting on this trial, I was driving along singing out to Michael Jackson’s "Beat It" song and Journey’s "Don’t Stop Believing". My daughter came with me that morning and after returning from the urine sample, I came into the room to see her sitting with the coordinator and had tears in her eyes. It was that very moment I felt defeated. I felt in my core I lost this fight. It was very difficult not to break down and cry hard. To plead to God, "Why?!". This happened to me 3 times prior to really getting on the clinical trial that ended up curing me. I had to go through 1 failure of interferon and ribavirin and now these 3 attempts to cure. Let me say, I had every opportunity to get depressed and just want to quit. But I got up from that chair and my daughter and I got into the car and cried. We both released our anger and disappointment. For my Megan, she had to witness my hopes once again be demolished. How many hoops do I have to jump through before I get my chance?

Getting cured

Well, I am here to say the very next trial opportunity, I did not let my hopes get high. Megan went again with me and yes that day, I did get accepted on the clinical trial for end-stage livers - Solbvaldi and Ribaviran. But... I drew the placebo for the first 6 months. UGH. Ok, I tried to stay positive. After my 6 months of faking I was taking a pill and it was doing something for me, I almost got pulled off this trial. They were going to not give me the drug after all, but my trial coordinator went to bat for me and fought hard for them to give me the medication. It was this action from her I owe my life to... I finally got my cure. It was then I began my real journey. I did not celebrate until the pill was in my mouth, my daughter, my coordinator and myself all with tears in our eyes.

I guess the song Don’t Stop Believing holds true for me too; There was one song for me that stuck to my life’s story, and that song is "One Moment in Time". Every word is my life.

“I rise and fall but yet through it all I want moment in time. When all of my dreams are a heartbeat away. And the answers are all up to me. There in that one moment of time I will feel eternity. When all my dreams are a heartbeat away. One moment in time when I am racing with destiny.”

What has been your song that you fall to when things get overwhelming or you feel blessed?