Hepatitis C Epidemic Exposed and It is Not What You Think #hepatitisC

​In Recovery
It was a difficult but joyful weekend when we visited my brother who is recovering from Hepatitis C treatment and a severe stroke. He has a myriad of things wrong with him and even though he is ten years older than me we have always had a close relationship. For those of you who don't know, we are seeking a change in his military discharge status so he can qualify for VA benefits. It is a difficult journey and I have to say I admire my niece who volunteers her time to help vets apply for benefits in Nevada. At times, it is a tedious and unrewarding task.  Without her help, her dad wouldn't have  had a chance.

​Last week, my sister-in-law received a letter from the Veterans Administration. She was convinced the letter denied him all benefits. Most people would have taken the letter and tossed it into the trash thinking their application was denied, but for some reason, she saved it. The letter read that veterans who received a dishonorable discharge would not be considered and that was that, but Jerry didn't have an dishonorable discharge, he had an undesirable discharge a completely different type of discharge than what the letter suggested. Upon second and then third reading, I found the wording  confusing at best and  incoherent at worst. You had to study the two sentences to eventually get to the meaning which is absolutely ridiculous and purposely misleading. I can't imagine the amount of  money the VA has saved writing the letter this way.  

After that, we huddled around my brother's kitchen table, put my sister on speaker phone, and together with his wife and Dennis we rehashed those terrible days when Jerry returned from war. ​What shocked me is that although my brother did not talk to me about his experience in Vietnam, he had talked to my husband. Even more surprising is that my husband never told me what my brother shared with him. These were conversations between two friends and Dennis never betrayed that trust until my brother gave him permission today to do so today. Once again, I am reminded how fortunate I am to be married to such an honorable individual.

​One must remember that my brother fades in and out. Clearly, he has dementia, but there are times he is all there and times when he is not. You find out by asking him his age. If he is 3 then he is in no mood to talk. If he's 13, he will want to play with you, but today, for the first time since May, he was 71 and said 71 quite clearly.  Although he was agitated, he wanted to speak with our sister, Joan. She brought up all the things he did as a kid and for the first time in a long time, my brother laughed and enjoyed a conversation. She said the perfect things, relating to a time in his life when he was happy.  

​We also laughed with the remembering that after my brother left the military we learned that Jerry was not a fan of the government.  He walked out of two VA hospitals and essentially went AWOL not once but twice. Once out of San Francisco and another time out of Monterey.  Dennis drove the get away car both times. We were young and impressionable and we believed the war was bad, but we had no idea what it was really like. Only Jerry did and then Dennis and now I do. What a sad, cruel story. What a horrible thing to have happened to a soul that used to write love letters to those he cared for. ​ After this blog, I will begin a timeline of his experiences after Vietnam. I get to write about his PTSD, his nightmares, his visions of Vietnam. I will be contacting old friends, ex-wives and ex-girlfriends for their statements.  Jerry needs his VA benefits and damn-it all, he deserves them.

Hepatitis C
​I wrote the article below for Blasting News because I had discovered just how the Hepatitis C epidemic started.  Sadly, even though I asked people to share it on Facebook and Twitter only a few did. For those who did, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I don't know if it is because my brother's generation is dying out and young people don't care, or if people are just too consumed with the political hatred that permeates our country today and would rather talk about who hates the Donald and the Hillary. Whatever it may be, I've lost one family member to the virus and there is evidence my brother's heart and vascular issues were caused by the Interferon therapy that nearly killed him.

​Hepatitis C Epidemic Exposed
When two of my family members tested positive for Hepatitis C, I tried to figure out how they were exposed. My brother survived the experience while my brother-in-law died in 1998. Both were Vietnam Vets and I wanted answers. When my brother-in-law died at the age of 46, we were devastated by the loss. He had fought the virus for over 5 years. From bleeding varices to liver transplants, biopsies and steroids, he struggled to stay alive for his family. We lived in Kaiser San Francisco’s ICU waiting room. We prayed, we cried, and when told that a man had died in a motorcycle accident that had a matching liver, we celebrated.  

Praying for answers
For nine months we prayed for answers, hoped, and prayed some more that he would survive. His lost his kidneys during transplant surgery—a known complication. There were rides to dialysis, visits to convalescent hospitals where he recovered from infections, until at the very end, a simple but deadly mold entered his blood stream that infected his heart and killed him. Back then, there were no treatments—no hope.  

​Read more by clicking here.

​And thank you for stopping by.

​PS There is a twitter and FB link at the bottom. If you can share, it would help other military families facing the same issue.