Hi

Hi, Marilyn, and welcome to the forum. It sounds like you have some experience in being a caregiver. Perhaps you have some tips you would like to share. Check out the Caregivers thread on thiis forum. There are lots of great people who post there and you will receive info and support and perhaps you can share with others.

Is your friend on hep C treatment? What is the state of his health?

Hugs,
Connie

MJ,

I too welcome you to the Forum.

We have some good features. If you have a particular topic, you can ask about it, or can go tothe SEARCH feature on the blue line just above and type in a medicaiton, or side effect, etc. And the old posts on a particular topic come up. Or you can trace a particular's member's journey if someone seems close to your situation...location, age, diagnosis, problem...

My situation is that I am a caregiver of a 63 year old man who has had Alcholic Cirrhosis, Hep C, and Heptocellular Carcinoma. He was ill a long long time and then got VERY ill in 2010...the doc told him he had 3 months if he continued to drink ANY alcohol.

He quit in September 2010, got a liver transplant in May 2011, and has done pretty well. Not perfect, but here he is every day...still looking for a lot of help. More this week as he had an incisional hernia over the transplant scar and they went in to fix it. It has sent him back to almost post transplant status...with frequent labs, visits to the transplant center, etc.

With good care, good meds, good monitoring, a person with Hep C and cirrhosis can do pretty well Alcohol Free. Mike had Hep C treatment in 2003 and he lasted those 7 years still drinking if you can believe it, though every article and doctor told him to quit. He had the opinion that he'd just die happy. Well, it turned out to be a terrible way to die! And he quit at the last minute.

The caregiving can be hard with this one as there is the mental component which you are likely experiencing or will soon. Hepatic encephalopathy sets in when the liver is not properly processing wastes. Mike was a BEAR and returns to Mr. Cranky Pants status when he doesn't feel well. Shouting at me is the worst. I will be glad to shop, cook, go in the shower with him, help him tie his shoes, get the meds organized...but not while being called a "horrible person." That gets me every time.

I take longer than I should going to the grocery store, even stopped at a girlfriends yesterday for a cup of tea. When I get "done in" I need to take breaks. He can't understand because he is sick. There seems to be no talking to him and getting him to realize the piece he plays in this...there is nothing attached to his tongue when he is feeling badly. Hope your man is a more gentle soul.

When he was first home from transplant, he cried every day, thanked me for making toast, told me I was his savior, that he'd be dead if it weren't for me. Seems those thoughts are on vacation just now.

Write often, we are here. Technical/medical stuff, start a new topic and tell us about HIM.

Caregiving stuff, use that latest open thread. I think we are on Caregivers 14.

Best,

Carol from Florida...almost neighbors.