Don't be Ashamed of your Hepatitis C
Don’t be Ashamed of your Hepatitis C
Ahoyee matees! It’s Talk Like a Pirate Day! Woot Woot!
(just had to throw that in there!)
It seems to me that there are a lot of people who have Hepatitis C and feel a sense of shame. They consider the disease to be something that should embarrass them or make them feel badly about themselves. It could be because of how they obtained the disease in the first place. Does a person who got Hep C from a blood transfusion feel less shameful then someone who got it from unprotected gay sex? I really don’t know the answer to that but, I do firmly believe that no matter which way someone contracts HCV, it is not a deserved outcome to a wild and crazy youth. It’s not something that you get because you’re a bad or dirty person. There absolutely needs to be more education on this disease and I realize that more each and every day.
I remember when I first met my husband and he told me almost immediately that he had Hepatitis C. I was like, “Huh? What’s that?”. Seriously, I had no friggin’ clue what he was talking about. I can’t quite remember but, I’m pretty sure that I looked it up on the internet (because that’s where I go when I want just da facts!).
Anyway, he has this really funky tattoo on his bicep that some kind of happy looking skull with a snake weaving in and out of the various openings in the skull. It’s very attractive (tee hee hee!) and very scary – oh yes, he looks like an enormous bad ass when that sucker pops out of his t-shirt! Apparently, according to my husband he got Hep C from this awesome tattoo. I believed him because, as I said I had not one iota of a clue what Hepatitis C was and he had told me that he got it from a blood transfusion or swapping spit with someone who had it, I’d have believed him.
So, a year or so goes by and he tells me that he used to be a bad druggie. I am shocked but, not really surprised because he seems like he was probably a really bad kid when he was younger and everything sort of fits together in the puzzle of his youth as I had heard it. Nothing surprising, I mean a lot of people have done drugs and it’s not like I was some perfectly innocent “A” student in my youth. But, one day we went out to a bar (and I know he should NOT have been drinking) but, he starts to get a little tipsy and he lets it slip that he was an injecting drug user. He goes on to spew out all of this information that I really didn’t want to know about his drug-filled past including arrests and generally treating everyone around him like dog shit.
Then, he mentions that he got Hep C from drug use and that his ex brother-in-law also has it. I guess they shared needles and what-not in the past. I guess sharing is not always a good idea – especially with something that actually penetrates your body, heeeeeeeeeelllllllllllo. That’s okay those because when people are on drugs they tend to do a bunch of stupid shit. Well, apparently, the way he got HCV has always been a well-guarded secret because he is ashamed of his drug-riddled past. My opinion on this is “well, hey – at least you’re not a drug addict now! At least you quit destroying your life and became a good person and father and husband.” He doesn’t seem to see it that way.
Fast forward about 2 years and my husband gets into a lawnmower accident. (FYI – do not use a bungee cord to hold up the mower guard on your riding mower and then put your arm in front of it to pick up items in the yard. Sometimes, rocks can fly out of there and go right into your arm!) While at the hospital, he told the doctor that he had Hepatitis C and he asked how he got it and my husband spewed out “from my tattoo”. The doctor obviously did not believe his lie and said something like “Oh, hmmmm, that’s strange.”. I was astounded that he blatently lied to a doctor! I couldn’t believe it, my thinking has always been along the lines of “well, the doctor has seen and heard it all – how bad can I seem compared to the rest of the world?”. I just didn’t get it.
I don’t know. It just saddens me that someone would have to feel like they need to lie about how they got a disease. Even if it came from doing drugs, bad bad drugs – it’s okay. You’re a person, not a robot. We all make mistakes, some big, some little but, they are our mistakes to make. We write our own destiny but, sometimes our actions have consequences that we didn’t know about at the time. Occasionally, we don’t find out until WAY later that something we did is going to effect us for the rest of our lives and not everything is going to be something good.
You just never know and my bottom line is that you live, you learn and you hopefully get a little wiser. We’ve all done things that we’re ashamed of but, no one deserves to get a disease from it! Being a drug user doesn’t mean that you’re a horrible person, it just means that you have a weakness and we all have weaknesses.
#hepc #hcv #talklikeapirateday #hepatitis
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