stigma

[Guest guest]

Unfortunatly I think Sassy is right about the sigma attached to HepC. When my sister in law was diagnosed and we were talking she was going through the laundry list of how you could have gotten it and couldn't figure out how she got it. My response was it really doesn't matter. Do you question how you got diabetis or a brain tumor? No, you have it and you treat it. HepC is no different from any other disease, if you have it you treat it, period. It doesn't matter where it came from. I know of 2 people that have been missionaries all of there adult lives, they think they got it being inoculated to go over seas, years ago when they used an inoculation gun and didn't change needles. What we didn't know did hurt us. These 2 people are both married and have been for years, have always been faithful, never done drugs, you know the Ozzy & Harriet type of the 50's. She's was on TX and he wasn't. She wasn't working, he was. People looked at these 2 Christians the same way they look at all of us, what did you do to yourself to get this disease. They dedicated there lived to serving God in 3rd world countries, that's what they did. My husband, who has HCV, he did it all. Joined the army at 17, went over seas in the 70's. Got a tatoo in a foriegn, 3rd world country, used intervenous drugs, got vacinated with a vacination gun when he joined the army and was premiscuous. Take your pick, he could have gotten it any number of ways but really who cares. The person he is today is not the person he was 30 years ago when I met him. He wouldn't be married to me if he was, I don't share well. When I see that look on peoples faces I just want to slap it off. Yea, that's right, the Christian, head elder lady wants to slap people in the face. Sometimes it's really hard to be meek and I've never slapped anyone yet. It just really pisses me off when I see people looking at my husband like he has the plague. It brings out the mama bear in me or evil Loretta, one of the two or maybe a cross between the two.

Education is the key. People just don't know and what they don't know scares them. So we just have to do a good job sharing all that we know. We have to be the HepC evangelist and get the knowledge out there. We need good, informative, inexpensive little brochures to spread around and carry with us to share with people. Something that doesn't have a book written in it but that has some good info that can be read in a few minutes. Churches call them tracts and have them printed for every belief they have. AIDs foundations did it in the 80's the HCV foundations need to copy what worked.

I'm done harping,

see ya, L Re: dummie anniversary What the general public thinks of as the "typical" profile of a hep c person is some one covered with tattoos and a iv drug user - no offense meant for any one its just the feed back i have personally gotten. (and yes I have 2 tattoos)