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Charles Lyonhart
When I was first diagnosed with Hepatitis C (HCV) in 1974 they didn’t have a name for it. They called it Non A/B Hepatitis. It wasn’t until 1989 that HCV was discovered and believed to come from blood transfusions.
I contracted my hepatitis from IV use while using heroin in the 60s and 70s. One can live for many years symptom free until the virus erupts and wreaks havoc on your liver. HCV becomes chronic in approximately 75% to 85% of those infected. I ran a business, raised a family of three children with my wife, worked out at a gym regularly and wrote, recorded and performed my music at least 3-4 nights a week. All was going well until about 1992 when I was told that I did in fact have HCV at a routine physical. I was still feeling pretty good and was told that there was a good chance that I could live a normal life with the virus symptom free. How little they knew back then and how wrong they were. According to the CDC’s findings today, 3.5 million people have HCV, most of them baby boomers born between the years 1945 and 1965. It’s called the “silent killer” because 75% of the people infected with HCV are unaware that they even have it. It’s the number one cause of liver cancer and liver transplants in the United States.
It was about 1994 and I was coming up to Woodstock pretty regularly to hang out with my buddy, Bluegrass legend John Herald. I started to notice that I was running out of steam quicker than I had been before. I had spoken with John about how I was feeling and he agreed that he felt the same, although he was ten years older than me. We both complained of tiring easily. So I blew it off thinking that I was working too hard, just getting older and if my pal John felt this way, it was okay to feel tired most of the time. I functioned like this for years and kept going, pushing myself despite the fact that I was getting sicker all the time. I often couldn’t get out of bed in the morning and started to run fevers, have extreme abdominal pain, loss of appetite, and my urine started to turn brown.
Read more ….http://www.woodstockx.com/2016/02/29/point-of-view-living-no-more-with-hepatitis-c/