ONE STEP AT A TIME

Regretts.
Maybe I made a mistake by climbing Mt. St. Helens.
Or by going on a 25 mile bike ride last weekend up through the trails of Forest Park.
Or by spending the day washing and restaining the back deck.

Starting to feel that feverish feeling for the last few days.

Yesterday go my final results which were done one week after I quit the trial. My viral load had popped back up to over 46,000 in only a week. Whew. They also included the genotype testing which was done. I compared it to the one I had started at the start of the study. 2 more mutations in the NRT class, but my susecptibility to Truvada seemed unaffected, it still gives a reduced response with about the same fold increase. Three more mutations in the protease class. The questions were these new mutations that had arose, are were they the ones they just started testing from. Most disturbing is that I have a reduced response rate now for Presista. One less totally good drug, which I had been holding out hope for in the past 2 years....

OK, the question now is with Fuzeon. I had asked Dr. A about doing some sort of resistance testing a couple of weeks ago, testing for the GP41 mutation which I had read about online. I had also posed the question to Eric Daar on TheBody.com, and he also thought it would be a good idea.
Got a call from the clinic yesterday, and Dr. A. wants to go through with the test -- which is pretty specialized and will have to be sent to Canada. I guess she also got my resistence test from the study, and realized that my options are again beginning to deminish.
Will have the testing done on Monday, along with a new viral load and T-cell.

Now, the questions is what I can even do with the information.

Didn't sleep last night, worrying -- feeling like things are closing in. The immediate task, staying healthy for the next few months -- realizing that I may need to reduce any strenuous activites such as climbing a new summit. I've already got a tough enough summit to climb.