Health worker wages personal and professional war on hepatitis
By Jim Casey, Peninsula Daily News
Print This |
Email This
Recent Headlines
State parks panel today to consider transferring Fort Worden to Port Townsend control -- 2/8/12 -06:07 PM
Waterfront walkway in Port Angeles slated to be built this summer -- 2/8/12 -06:02 PM
Same-sex marriage bill goes to governor; likely signed next week -- 2/9/12 -08:50 AM
Port Angeles council pair fails to persuade colleagues to rethink lawsuit fight against FEMA -- 2/8/12 -06:02 PM
Olympic National Park chief to retire next month; interim designated -- 2/8/12 -06:17 PM
What she'll never forget is how it turned her life inside out.
"I was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 1998 after several years of having chronic fatigue and flu-like symptoms, but never getting really sick," she said last week in Clallam County's Health and Human Services Department.
There, she manages its health programs. She's been a public health worker most of her life.
"To the best of my tracking back, I was infected in the 1980s by a needle stick," she said. "I was doing blood draws in Arizona at the time."
Hurst was "tested for everything under the sun," including HIV.
At one point, doctors diagnosed her chronic fatigue as a brain disorder and prescribed anti-depressants.
"I just knew something was wrong," she said.
"I spent two years trying to express to a doctor what this chronic fatigue was like."
Found answer in paper
It wasn't until Hurst read a newspaper report about hepatitis C that she matched its symptoms to what she was feeling and asked for a test.
It was positive and, for a brief while, so was Hurst.
"It was almost a sigh of relief to know there was a name for what I had," she said.
There are three strains of hepatitis:
Types A and B can be vaccinated against.
It also has no cure, although it can disappear.
Pills and injections
Once diagnosed, Hurst immediately had her children tested for the disease because she could have passed it to them during childbirth.
Jessie, now 17 years old, and Ryan, now 9, were free of hepatitis C.
Hurst herself began a regimen of taking anti-viral pills and injecting herself weekly with prescribed amounts of interferon, a cancer chemotherapy drug.
Things went smoothly for about a month.
Then she became extremely sick with long bouts of high fever, fatigue, nausea, vomiting and depression.
"I just wanted to crawl into bed," she said, "and I wanted to die."
Hurst kept up the body-wracking regimen for nine months before tests showed she had been clean of the hepatitis C virus for 12 weeks.
"I stopped the treatment," she said. "I was never happier."
Virus rebounded on her
But two weeks later she felt ill again, and tests showed the virus had rebounded.
Hurst had to choose between letting the illness continue to attack her liver or to endure a year of treatment, spending $500-$600 a month on medications.
This time, she suffered tingling in her legs, loss of balance, fever and vomiting.
"I kept plugging and I kept going on," she said, working when she could at the Arizona Department of Health Services — in the hepatitis C program.
"It was kind of a fluke that that's where I ended up," she said.
"I helped them create some programs."
The main advantage to her job was that "I had people around me who knew what I was going through."
Friends stayed at her home when she was too sick to care for herself, and Jessie helped care for Ryan.
Daughter became mother
"She became the primary mom of the family for a little while," Hurst said, helping cook and clean so her mother, who was raising the children on her own, could sleep, sometimes 24 hours a day.
After six months of treatment, Hurst began having seizures. Her doctor stopped her treatments — and discovered she no longer had the virus.
"For whatever reason, it worked, and I have been virus-free for four years now.
"I'm one of the lucky ones."
Now Hurst is supervising a program that offers free testing for hepatitis C to residents of Clallam County.
Many people can have hepatitis C for 20 or 25 years without being diagnosed — until they show signs of serious liver disease.
Some people might shrink from discussing an illness that often attacks intravenous drug users.
'I'm hoping that this helps'
Not Hurst.
"My main goal is that if my story can help one person, it's worth people knowing what happened to me.
"I'm hoping that this helps somebody get through what I went through."
Hurst has been known to don a costume that transforms her into a walking drop of blood to dramatize blood-borne illnesses.
She's taking on the hepatitis C campaign with even more than her customary zest.
"I'm just really excited," she said.
"This is a really great opportunity for us to be able to do something with hepatitis C in this county."
Where and when to get free testing
Clallam County Health and Human Services will offer free hepatitis C testing in Port Angeles and Forks through July 2009.
"It's a finger stick," said Christine Hurst, health programs manager, about the test.
"We take a blood sample and we send it to a laboratory. They send us back the results."
People who test positive for the liver-wasting disease will receive advice on how to fight it and learn about other resources.
They'll also get free vaccinations for hepatitis A and B, a series of three shots over six months.
Testing will be offered from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays at the public health clinic in the lower level of the Clallam County Courthouse, 223 E. Fourth St., Port Angeles, and at the county clinic in Forks, 140 W. C St.
Hurst said it's best to call 360-417-2274 to arrange an appointment and avoid a delay.
People especially at risk of hepatitis C include persons who:
Hurst said an estimated 69,000 people in Washington state unknowingly have hepatitis C.
Clallam ranks third in the state with 136 cases of the illness per 100,000 persons. Mason and Cowlitz counties top the list.
More information on the illness is available at www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/HepatitisC.htm.
________
Reporter Jim Casey can be reached at 360-417-3538 or at jim.casey@peninsuladailynews.com.
Last modified: August 09. 2008 9:00PM