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Personal Stories

Experience of both new (DAA) and old (interferon- based) treatments

Here you’ll find participants’ accounts of hepatitis C diagnosis, living with hepatitis C, treatment and cure. The people and stories were carefully selected to highlight diversity in backgrounds and experiences. While this website is not able to tell every possible story of hepatitis C and treatment in Australia, it can show just how different people and their experiences are. In the stories can be found details of the many important concerns and circumstances our participants negotiated in living with and having treatment for hepatitis C.

The stories presented here rely on participant reports of overdose. Some experiences may not conform to medical definitions of overdose, and some responses described may not reflect medical advice.

While these narratives were written from the interview transcripts and rely on participants’ own words, some aspects have been paraphrased to improve coherence and readability. In making these changes we have worked hard to remain faithful to the original meaning and intentions. Some experiences may also be presented in other sections of the website, using more detailed quotations.

Colin
Colin is a mental health support worker. He was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 1996, when he was in prison.
Dave
Dave found out he had hepatitis C after receiving a blood donation in the mid-1990s.
Harriet
Harriet was diagnosed with hepatitis C in about 2012. She recalls feeling very worried at the time and began interferon-based treatment about two weeks after the diagnosis.
Heather
Heather was diagnosed with hepatitis C after her daughter was diagnosed with it through ‘a routine pregnancy screen’.
Marty
Marty was diagnosed with non-A, non-B hepatitis in the late 1980s after he donated blood and returned positive test results for what he was told was a ‘rare antigen’
Robbie
After experiencing serious health problems in the early 1990s, Robbie decided to get tested for hepatitis C and found out that he was positive
Rohan
Rohan works in an LGBTIQ health organisation
Tristan
Tristan has had hepatitis C twice