I have been angered to the point of rage by the"HCV vector" controversy and some of the ignorant comments made by those who insist upon emphasizing sexual contact in the transmission of the HCV.
Just for the record, my wife (who is infected with the HCV) and I have had a healthy and passionate love life prior to and since her diagnosis in 12/93. I have not been infected by her and am, to this date, free of this hidious virus.
As a matter of fact, my wife is among the 40% who do not know how she was infected. She was diagnosed in the week following a nasty hysterectomy (no blood transfusion) during which time she displayed the usual "flu" like symptoms of an initial hepatitis attack. She knew this was no ordinary flu and, thank God, a Doctor investigated and found the HCV antibodies. However, we were told not to worry as hepatitis C "was no big deal" and "people carry the virus all their lives without a problem."
Since then she has been told by doctors that she isn't sick- just upset because she can't have babies, she is malingering, that I abuse her, that she is suffering from psychotic conversion reactions, and that she is a drug abuser and an alcoholic. I could go on... If ignorance could be a vector, then the medical community is the single greatest vector of this virus. Billions of dollars are wasted every year by our government but only a few millions are put toward hepatitis C research and next to nothing is spent on treatment. Can anyone answer me this: If HCV is no big deal to the goverment and medical community, why do insurance companies laugh at me and refuse to insure my wfe?
Perhaps my wfe got the HCV while a nurse working with refuges in Miami during the boatlifts of the early 1980's. Perhaps she contracted it while working with AIDS patients in undersupplied New Orleans nursing homes in the late 1980's. Or maybe from the bite of sexually traumatized child she was treating in a psych hospital in the early 90's. As a nurse my wife has been there for some of our society's most helpless and hopeless members, working with those whom the government and medical communities have ignored. Now she has the HCV and the health department wants her to be reported so they can investigate her sexual history?
Mad? Hell yes I'm mad. What will the state do with this information? I am a nurse also. Will I be prevented from working with patients because of an outside chance that I may become infected by sexual contact with wife?
Well, I have been holding this in for 4 1/2
years. Thanks for letting me rant.
The Joker
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