Hepatitis Forums
Hepatitis C Main Forums => On Hepatitis C Treatment => Topic started by: flower-child-68 on December 03, 2012, 10:19:28 am
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I know this is from a press release but it's still a great story.
As Hurricane Sandy approached the United States, millions of people scurried to secure their homes and keep their families safe during this emergency. But for some people, like Gloria Brown* who lives near the New Jersey shore, this hurricane came with the added risk of potentially keeping them from their life-saving medications.
The Storm Before the Hurricane
Gloria’s world was in a whirlwind, even before Sandy’s arrival. Just 12 weeks before, Gloria received the unexpected diagnosis of hepatitis C. “I got the hepatitis C virus as a “silent gift” during blood transfusions many years ago,” she explains.
“I didn’t have second thoughts about going ahead with treatment, even after my doctor explained all the side effects,” Gloria shares. In fact, she wasn’t very concerned about the treatment: “I mean, who can possibly get all those side effects?” she remembers thinking to herself.
After a two-week grace period, the treatment side effects hit hard. “At first it was only a rash, but that was soon joined by bleeding hemorrhoids and then a fiery itch covering every square inch of my body,” shares Gloria. Still, Gloria faithfully took her medications with hopes of a cure sustaining her. Not even the development of painful mouth sores kept her from continuing treatment.
At the six-week mark into her treatment, right around the time news stations started talking about the possibility of a hurricane approaching the Northeast, “I got the best news ever: a blood test showed that the virus was undetected in my body,” she says. If she could just endure these side effects for a bit longer, she was likely to be cured.
Medications: Casualties of the Storm
On Monday, October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy made landfall along the New Jersey shore, not far from Gloria’s home. Unfortunately, Sandy got there before her package, which was stuck at a distribution hub in another state.
Here's the full piece as it appeared on Yahoo...
http://news.yahoo.com/hurricane-sandy-hepatitis-c-won-t-keep-patient-130229919.html
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I don't care that its a pharmacy press release. It's still a great story.
I hope it all works out for Gloria and all those poor people down the jersey shore who lost everything in the storm.
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That IS an inspirational story!
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What is odd about this story is that I get my medicine by mail order from a pharmacy in New Jersey and I'm in PA. Couldn't she have gotten her meds from the same pharmacy? And, how did she keep it refrigerated if she had no electricity? Just askin'.