Health Topics

Curiously, when in the final throes of living the chemo, I wrote less about the side effects than early on. One of the less painful, but madly frustrating, consequences is neuropathy. What happens is this: nerve cells are wiped out and muscle atrophy sets in. In practical terms, everyday living is affected in various and mundane ways. Some examples: the resistance that must be overcome in turning over the car’s ignition is so great as to require either both hands or a fist-like grip; the quickness required in sliding the card in and out of the gas pump’s credit card reader is so compromised as to necessitate a trip inside the station; holding the guitar pick with the thumb, index, and middle fingers is only possible for brief periods; buttoning clothes becomes difficult to the point that one either leaves the garment fastened enough to slip it over the head, or enlists the aid of a confederate to button the shirt. Tying and zipping also present challenges that I’ve discussed earlier.

How long does this last? I can now perform all of the tasks listed above.

Ouch! Organ bandits. So, you need a kidney? We got em!

Naseem Mohammed, a day laborer in Old Delhi, India, drowsily emerged from unconsciousness, bewildered by the green institutional gown and growing pain in his lower left side. Looking beseechingly at the armed guard nearby, he was told that his kidney had been removed. It seems that Mr. Mohammed was among some 500 Indians whose kidneys were stolen by a gang of physicians operating an illegal transplant business, offering bargain kidneys to rich Indians and foreigners.

Like most of the kidnapped donors, Mr. Mohammed was offered work, driven to a well-appointed secluded clinic, and then secretly anesthetized (some are forced at gunpoint) to render his kidney.

“How much is that kidney in the window? The one with the waggedy tail.”

Hepatitis C

For those of you who haven’t followed my blog from its inception, I have a confession to make, long before my cancer came to the fore, I contracted hepatitis C. If the word confession seems odd, as it does to me, I use it deliberately as a way of bringing attention to a topic I touched upon in July: the idea that having a disease constitutes a moral flaw. That to be diseased is to be at fault for something, that I, the victim, am somehow to blame, at fault. Perhaps it was that house in Detroit, Faircrest off Hayes, where I afflicted myself with the shame of virulence.

Oftentimes the hep C virus silently destroys the liver. A lack of symptoms is the rule rather than the exception. The damage done, if not the needle, usually shows up decades later. In my case, I went in for a routine physical. With the exception of having slightly elevated enzyme levels, my health was excellent in every aspect. Further blood work revealed the hep C virus.

There are 6 hepatitis viruses—A, B, C, D, E, G. The worst of these being C. Long term, the hep C infection can lead to liver cancer, liver failure or cirrhosis—irreversible and potentially fatal scarring of the liver. Unlike HIV, the hepatitis C virus usually isn’t transmitted through sexual contact. Typically, contaminated blood is the culprit—through shooting up or blood transfusions.

Unlike hepatitis A and B, there is no vaccine for hep C.

FYI, 1992 is the year that improved blood-screening tests became available. Most people diagnosed with hep C contracted through blood transfusions were infected prior to that year.

Who is at risk? Intravenous or intranasal drug users, pre 1992 organ transplant recipients, health care workers exposed to infected blood, hemodialysis patients, and babies born to women with hepatitis C infections.

Good news. A hep C diagnosis doesn’t always indicate treatment. Because mine was asymptomatic at diagnosis (2006), I elected not to be treated. Treatment is often recommended if a large amount of the virus is circulating in the blood, if a liver biopsy indicates significant liver damage, or if elevated levels of the liver enzyme, alanine aminotransferace (ALT) are revealed by blood work.