Journal

Last winter when I was living through my own personal version of hell I got really cold. The weather was horrible, cold cold cold, and this was Georgia! Not eating and feeling like crap didn't help of course and sometimes I honestly yearned to be back in hospital for a week or so, 'cos there I could have the thermostat in my room racked up to 80 degrees and no complaints!

I hate cold, I really want to move south, Key West would suit me fine - now there's a thought!

Anyway, at least for this winter we are free from our big (cold) house and living in a cosy (warm) apartment and hardly need to run heating which is awesome. It is like a little warm cocoon, very peaceful, quiet, tranquil and an ideal place to spend the winter writing a book!

I've been kicking the idea around for some time now. A book that is. This last year has been such an experience. More has happened to myself and Linda than is easily describable but the good thing is that we both emerge stronger, happier and more together than we were a year ago (if that was possible).

So, I've never written a book before. It is going to be a challenge for many reasons, laziness being a prime factor, but also how to make a book on cirrhosis in any way readable! But, one way or another it is going to get written and I always believe that there is humor in any situation, so hopefully I can put something together which will be entertaining and informative.

My Bible, Alcoholic Cirrhosis as a Syndrome not a Disease, is going to feature in no small part in the book. I honestly believe that the research that went into that paper being written has saved my life. I have spent a lot of time over the last few months trying to find out where the paper came from and who the heck wrote it. I found it originally on a little used web site and have only come across two other copies of the paper (one incomplete) since then.

Happily, my research has paid off and I now know who the author was, a gentleman by the name of Horace Simmons who unfortunately died on June 11th this year.  I have been in touch with his family and have spoken at length with his former partner, Vicki. I told them my story and the part that Horace had played in it and my desire to write a book. I asked them for permission to use his work without fear of copyright infringement and I'm glad to say they have generously agreed. I think his children were staggered that their father had such an impact on other people's lives!

So,  I've now taken the plunge and started. Chapter 1 is pretty much done and I now have to focus on both getting the book written and finding out the best way of getting it published. It is a whole new ball game to me and any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I find it thrilling just now that so much in the way of good news is becoming available that helps people to recover from, or at least live with this horrible disease. It would be nice to think that if I can produce a worthwhile book, that it may play a part in publicizing and generating interest in cirrhosis in the eyes of the public and perhaps even the blinkered eyes of the medical profession.

Horace's work went way beyond cirrhosis and I have been promised access to his other research which I believe will be just as exciting and ground breaking. We shall see!!

When I think back to a year ago when there seemed no future, no chance of living and death was my constant companion and now look at today where there is hope, there is knowledge and people are actually getting better I am amazed at how far things have come.

The Cirrhosis Group here have done a lot recently to research new data about cirrhosis, unfortunately much of this good information has come too late for some, but hopefully newcomers to this board will have a way better chance of surviving this disease than they would have had just a year ago.

So, with that said, I must get back to the book!!!!!!

Craig 

It is Autumn, normally one of my favorite times of year but his Autumn has started as Summer ended, cold and wet. October sees me celebrating 10 years living in the USA, all of them in Georgia and after a tour up into the Appalachian Mountains this last weekend, showing my sister Angela (from Scotland) about, it brings home what a beautiful part of the world North Georgia is.

October also bring my first anniversary of being diagnosed with major liver issues. What a year it has been! From the depths of despair when I first found I had cirrhosis, to the confusion, the not knowing what to do, the feelings of helplessness and inadequacy, the fear and the pain.

I've lived through every emotion possible and every fear imaginable. The specter of death that haunts the mind nearly 24 hours a day, only forgotten for brief moments or even seconds. The realization that the end is inevitable and there is little if anything that can be done about it.

Then, if we are lucky comes hope, the glimmer of light, the chance that maybe, just maybe there may be a way out of this hellhole disease called cirrhosis. I reached for it, grabbed it and embraced it. More over, I believed in it.

My savior was a document written by a man I have never met, nor never will. This document became 'My Bible'. This man died a short time ago, I wish I had spoken with him, met him even, or just been given the chance to thank him. Unfortunately I found out who he was too late. This man saved my life.

'My Bible' became everything to me. It cured me and now, as I learn more and more and discover more about this terrible disease I become more and more entrenched in my views that what this man wrote was right and most of the medical profession is wrong. Wow!

Also, as time goes on, I find that other people are also using and benefiting from 'My Bible'. A message from another member the other night confirmed that what the 'Bible' preaches, works.

But as in all things, we must remember that time is a great healer. In the days of 'instantaneous NOW', we forget that our bodies need time to heal, time to adjust and time to repair the damage done by disease.

But, recover it will and the road to recovery starts by being kind to your body. By feeding it the essential nutrients it needs to be able to recover. By being brave and at times ignoring modern medical advice and going back not so far, to the days before CAT scans and Ultra-Sound. Back to the days when cirrhosis was treatable and transplants didn't exist! Think about it.

For many, recovery maybe too late. For them, the disease may be too far advanced to be halted or regressed. But for the newly diagnosed, there is now hope. Hope that the words 'untreatable' and 'incurable' are never uttered again. Hope that doctors will re-embrace solid time-proven medicine and stop their total reliance on technology and their book on how to prescribe without being sued.

What I practice is not alternative medicine. It is real, living medicine. It is medicine that works, is cheap, simple and effective. It is medicine that has stood the test of time.

Craig

Alpharetta, October 14th 2009