And More Patience

Ribivarin depletes iron quickly. I'm taking the iron supplement again. In another week I'll get the results from the viral load test. Now and then I'm strong enough to do errands, and go for tests. Yesterday I saw the sky colors at sunset.

More Tests

Today I had my first set of follow-up lab tests. Riding the city bus down the green ravine of Fairmount was like a trip to the country for me. My range has been very limited lately. My bones and muscles are so heavy - did I move to a planet with greater gravity when I wasn't looking?

Stigma

I was first told (1997) that I had Hepatitis C at a blood bank. When I returned to give blood again, the person at the desk gave me a scared look. I was sent to a small room with a doctor, who apparently assumed I was a drug user. He warned me not to give blood, which was fine, but also not to kiss, not to have sex, not to use the same dishes as others even though they were washed, at home or in a restaurant. All these warnings proved to be unwarranted, but at the time I emerged from the encounter feeling like Typhoid Mary. I was devastated and diminished.

As time has passed, public information on Hepatitis C always gives the main source of new cases as shared needles. The assumption is that the needles are shared by addicts. The only needles I've ever had were administered in medical offices, so if the needles are the source, it would have to be improperly sterilized needles or reused disposable needles. Reused needles are a source of polio and other diseases.
Medical personnel have acquired diseases from accidental needle sticks while doing their jobs.

For a long time it was believed not to be transmissable by sexual activity, since so many partners of people with Hep C did not have the virus. Now the list of possibilities does include sexual activity, especially if there have been many partners. Any breaks in the skin could allow blood from one partner to enter the bloodstream of another.

By this logic, boxing should be listed as a source of Hepatitis C infection. Don't sit in the front row!

Transfusions spread the virus freely before 1992, when tests were finally developed that could detect the virus. Since then, the public is often assured that the blood supply is now free of that virus. I received transfusions in the 1960's, long before awareness of this virus. It's probable, but not provable, that I was infected then.

Hepatitis C virus often lurks for 20 years before becoming aggressive and causing symptoms. That means inflammation of the liver due to pre-1992 transfusions could show up for years to come.

The public is told that most people with Hepatitis C don't know they have it. So why don't doctors/labs test for it?

Stigma attached to this illness may help people deny it could happen to them. Thus it tends to inhibit people from trying to find out.