It’s odd that during the holiday season, after three years after being cured, I still think about hepatitis C. Many years ago, a blood transfusion that saved my life may have been the route to my disease. Or my infection may have been the result of a horrendous incident with bikers. Or perhaps there was transmission in my family, when I was young.

Twelve weeks of two of the earliest direct-acting antivirals led to my SVR in January 2015, but the puzzle of my infection lingered.

I decide to investigate. That led to a book about my journey with the disease and the pharmaceutical research that led to anti-viral cures. This past summer, Greystone Books published Demon in My Blood.

I thought that getting my story out—in a big way—would end my thoughts about the disease. Yet I continue to worry about my liver. It has regressed back to normal, from being near cirrhosis during my infection. That gives me confidence, but not certainty.

I slipped walking on the beach this fall and then felt a pain in my side. It kept me awake at night for more than a month. I wondered whether the pain was not actually a bruise or a torn rib. Might it have been some residual damage to my liver?

Entering the holiday season, I worried about parties I would attend. I had gone back to having a glass of wine now and then about a year ago. But it’s too easy to accept a refilled glass when someone carries a bottle to the table offering another round. Would another glass be good for me? Would there be unknown jiggers of vodka in the punch?

Occasionally I just get pain in the right side. But I have digestive problems unrelated to hep, which can create pain that seems like it’s coming from the liver. My doctor said to see him if the pain becomes steady.

So I continue to worry about hepatitis C, and I keep to a healthy-liver diet. But the good news is and always will be that I’ve been cured of hep C—and that cures are available for everyone, once they are diagnosed.

Every year more people are cured–and 2018 should see a decrease in the number of infected people worldwide. That’s good news for the new year. May you have a happy one.