Ronni Marks is a fashion designer from the US. She had hepatitis C for many years but has been cured. This is her story, courtesy of the World Hepatitis Alliance.
I grew up between Connecticut and New York City. I spent a lot of my childhood in hospital because I had a hip problem. Over the years, I had many hip surgeries and blood transfusions.
I believe it was from one of those blood transfusions that I got hepatitis C.
I found out I had the virus when my mother was having a knee replacement and a friend and I went to give blood. About two weeks later, I got a letter in the mail saying they needed to see me at the hospital.
We knew nothing about hepatitis C in 1996. Back then, they did liver biopsies. Thank goodness people don’t really need to have them today.
The doctor told me to go live my life, that everything was fine and said goodbye. And I did, until about six months
later when my primary care doctor called me and told me I had a serious illness. In those days patients took interferon and ribavarin treatment, and my doctor prescribed it to me. It was a horrific, horrific experience. It made me very sick, and I didn’t get cured.
Almost 20 years later my doctor suggested I go on medication again. Within 12 weeks of starting this new medication I was cured, but it was a long journey.
I now work with under-served communities because there is such a lack of support and education about hepatitis C. I think everybody should be tested. I think we should have universal testing, not just because you are a baby-boomer. It doesn’t matter how you got it, you have it. So let’s help one another and make sure everybody gets cured.
