Not having been on treatment this entire year was actually very nice! I felt good all year without too many symptoms. My hair stopped falling out, my appetite grew...and grew and grew. I even went off the Zoloft for awhile. After realizing that I was flipping out at little things I went back on the Zoloft! This made my family very happy to say the least!

I went to visit my sister in Colorado Springs in July with Larry and again by myself in November. It was so nice to spend some quality time with her and boy is that ever a pretty state! I fell in love with the Rockies and Pikes Peak. We even went to the top, which is 14,110 ft high. There is no real oxygen at that level and it was very difficult to breathe up that high!

I spent the rest of the year babysitting my darling granddaughter. Erika enrolled in school in July and is working to become a Medical Assistant. She is doing so much better now. Arianna is attending day care daily, as she still is too much for me to handle every day. I forgot how active a 3 yr old can be!

I have been working on my Yahoo Groups and it really helps me get through the boring days. My biopsy was not much different but I have alot more fat in my liver than I did when I started the study. This means that I really should lose some weight but I can't get motivated. I also need to get moving on some exercise but again there is just no motivation there. Hopefully that will improve!

All in all I would say I had a pretty good year HepC-wise. I only have pain in the liver area now and then although I still do not sleep right. I am up till midnight or 1 almost every night, wake up again about 3 hours later, go back to sleep, and wake up again 3 hours later. Some days I am exhausted but I think it is from the lousy sleep patterns.

I'm looking forward to 2003 and hope it's a great year. I do get depressed when I hear so many people responding to the Peg treatment. While I did not do the Schering PegIntron, it still makes me feel like a big loser to hear response stories. I know from talking to the study nurse that the response rate seems to be at about 40%, which in my mind still isn't very good, but it's a hell of a lot better than the 12% from mono therapy and the 25% from the other combo therapy. I still would not EVER do interferon again. I am now ok with knowing that I am just not a responder to it and hope that something will come down the pike that will help those of us who do not respond to interferon.