Day 1574

I got a call from my hepatologist today. He told me that on my latest round of blood tests, my viral load numbers had gone to zero. This meant that for the first time in almost thirty years, the Hepatitis C virus was completely undetectable in my body. I continue my treatment for three more weeks and I'm done. The treatment worked! My doctor wasn't quite willing to officially declare me cured yet, but he did say that these were the results they'd been looking for. I still find it ironic that the very same hospital that gave me a transfusion of contaminated blood back in the 1970's was now home to the world renowned liver clinic that cured my disease. Life is funny that way. Everything eventually comes full circle.

My quest to lower my cable bill today was a dismal failure. I hate cable companies. They lure you in with a low price and a two year contract. The initial two year contract is essential because they know in advance that it will take almost two years to get all the kinks out of your system and ensure that everything is running smoothly. Once you are happy and everything is operating the way it should have in the beginning, your contract runs out and the price goes up. If you are willing to upgrade to a more expensive plan when your contract runs out, they will often give you a artificially discounted rate for three to six months, so your bill doesn't seem like it's going up so dramatically. Eventually, you've taken advantage of all the special upgrade offers and the deals run out. Then your bill can double almost overnight. When you try to downgrade your service, you get no deals at all. The cable companies know how much trouble it was to wire your house and get the WiFi running smoothly. They know you don't really want to start over and go through this instillation hell again with another company, so they stick it to you. It's hard to unbundle services too. I really need the Internet portion of my bundle. Without the TV and phone, the Internet component would be much more expensive though. The worst thing is that the cable company isn't even embarrassed to charge you double for the same services they lured you in with in the beginning. It's just their business model. They know exactly what they're doing. They make a calculated bet that your will just shut up and pay more, because it's so much trouble to rip out the wires and start over with a different company.

I'm still amazed that Dash actually likes going to his cancer treatments. He thinks he's going to doggie day care. These guys are so good at giving anesthesia that I don't think Dash even realizes that he's out cold three times a week. He's not even groggy when I go to pick him up in the afternoon. I used to panic when Dash needed anesthesia, because he was what was known as a "hard wake up" dog at my local vet. I didn't realize then that all anesthesia isn't the same. A wide variety of drugs can be used and patients can have a different reaction to all of them. I'm really happy that the folks at the cancer center have managed to reduce the anxiety and risk associated with anesthesia to an absolute minimum. These guys are pros!

It looks like the rain is ending. It should be a nice day tomorrow, even though I'll be inside working on websites most of the day. Maybe I'll take a break and go up and get all the water from this week's rain off the roof. That's probably as close as I'm going to get to going to the gym for a while.

Molly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day