Strokes are horrible things that invade the mind and strip away memory and physical ability. One TIA after another and the person you know is no longer there. Every now and then a glimmer of personality will show through and for a moment, I believe we can connect. I worry that the person he is, is trapped inside a body that no longer works.
Jerry's initial treatment for Hepatitis C was peginterferon and ribavirin therapy. Midway through he had a heart attack. He had serious liver issues like cirrhosis and swelling. He had already had one stroke and unbeknownst to us one of the side effects of this treatment was worsening vascular issues. However, even if we had known, we probably would have urged him into treatment. Our only other experience with Hepatitis C was death. In researching Vascular Dementia, the diagnosis my brother has along with COPD and diabetes, I realized the depth of this disease. His symptoms vary. Sometimes he is confused and disoriented while other times he has trouble speaking and/or understanding speech. This makes it hard to communicate. Often times, if he can understand me, he will just nod or shake his head. Last week, I gave him a pen and paper to see if he can write, but he truly didn't know what to do with the objects I gave him so I left him alone. When the hospital decided not to follow up on the bleeding with a colonoscopy, I realized our time was coming to an end. The doctor in charge of his case said he did not believe Jerry would survive the procedure and that was that. Granted this or something like this will happen to each of us as we age. Our bodies will become feeble and we will pass on to the other side with our loved ones waiting for us. It's just that as bad as end of life care is in our society, there were a few things that made Jerry's journey much harder. Always sensitive, a writer of poetry, intense and sweet all at the same time, made him vulnerable and on occasion, angry. Our father was big on making a man out of him. What our dad didn't understand was that under different circumstances Jerry might have been a writer like his sister and our grandmother. It takes an person who feels deeply to communicate emotion onto paper. The back side is that those feelings can also rise up to crush us if we are not taught how to handle them. No one taught Jerry so off he went to Vietnam prepared to do his duty. What he didn't know, is what the military was about to do to him. The Injector In March of 1958, the jet injector was introduced, the only downside being that slight bleeding might occur at the vaccination site. At that time, the jet injector was touted as a medical breakthrough with no sterilization necessary. * But what happens when a sneaky blood borne pathogen like hepatitis C, hepatitis B, and HIV hide inside a vaccine vial, air compressor, or jet gun nozzle? These are new virus', ones seeking novel ways to reproduce. The virus' replicate, doing what they should, being the best they can be, as they infect one service person after the other. The injector used is dirty, tainted with blood and other bodily fluids like sweat, a perfect vector for novel virus' to grow. Remember, there is no need to sterilize. The virus that affected my family is hepatitis C. Hep C, in its initial stages is often mild. The victim may experience a fever, perhaps some dark urine, a little abdominal pain, and some minor yellowing of the skin. Many with strong immune systems are able to fight the virus off and the pathogen disappears-- others go on, not thinking that in 20 or 30 years the minor viral infection they experienced would rise up to claim their lives. The U.S. Government has known about the problem with jet injectors since 1958 and it is time they step up and take responsibility or by the time they do most of our Vietnam Vets will have died. I have already buried one family member and soon will bury another, both thanks to this preventable disease. The Department of Veterans Affairs states, "One in 10 US Veterans are infected with HCV, that is 5 times higher than the national average. Another study conducted in 1999 showed that 10-20% of all veterans in the VHA system tested positive for hepatitis C. 62.7 percent of those who reported serving were in Vietnam. In 2012, the DOD began testing our current service members so the figures for HCV, HBV, HIV and the War on Terror are not accurate and will go up. Hepatitis C is a silent killer By the time anyone knows they have it, their health is compromised. Even now, 50,000 plus service men and women are walking around with the disease and they do not know they are infected. It is a fact, that the longer people live with hepatitis C the more dangerous the virus becomes. The damage from hepatitis C isn't pretty. My family members have experienced bleeding varices, where the blood vessels in the esophagus rupture, or even a type of dementia that happens when the liver begins to die. Blood ammonia levels rise and do brain damage. People in this stage have to take drugs todetoxify the body while they wait for a liver transplant. Broken blood vessels appear on the face and abdomen. Stomach pain, swelling, fever, and a general feeling of malaise take over leaving the victim incapacitated. Even with new medications the cure is not 100% in all cases. There are different types of hepatitis C and they all respond differently. Currently, there are 5 genotypes and you can be infected with more than one type. 1 is the most common, 1,2,and 3 are found world wide with type 4 in North Africa and 5 in South Africa. Jet Injectors were discontinued for mass vaccinations in 2004 due to possible health risks stating that in some cases, jet injectors can bring blood or other body fluids to the surface of the skin contaminating the injector thereby creating the possibility that viruses can be transmitted to another person being vaccinated with the same device. * What else needs to be said? To learn more about the journey please click below. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 *A special thank you to jet infectors dot com and Shaun Brown for his tireless dedication to uncover the mystery of his father's death, #military involvement, and hepatitis C. Another thank you to the Mayo Clinic who explained in detail why jet injectors have been discontinued. #hepatitisC #vietnamvet Comments are closed.
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