Biographical disruption and chronic illness, Magdalena Harris , http://www.hcv.org.nz/disruption.html
This is a study of what it means to different people to be diagnosed with Hepatitis C, based on research carried out by Magdalena Harris in New Zealand and Australia.
Whats it about ? Well for many people using intravenous drugs their lives are chaotic and driven by their addictions, they can live in community’s where having hepatitis C is a normalised part or life.
“participants who described their reaction to diagnosis as of “no big deal” or to be “expected”.
Thus a community normalization of hepatitis C combined with the participant’s familiarity with bodily and/or social dys-appearance would often lead to a hepatitis C diagnosis being less of a biographical disruption than it was for those who did not belong to drug injecting networks and/or had minimal prior experience of hardship or illness.”
Magdalena Harris is always worth reading, Her work often helps me form a new understanding of my Hepatitis C and how I think about illness and life, Thank you Magdalena.
With Hepatitis C of course not all people use intravenous drugs or have used intravenous drugs, It is perhaps not surprising that they have a different experience of diagnosis and their narratives are very different.
A recent interview with a Las Vagas man paints a more disruptive view of diagnosis. He caught hepatitis C in a Las Vegas Endoscopy clinic where a large number of people were recently infected.
“I do not want to give hepatitis to someone else,” he said, his eyes closing behind thick glasses. “I don’t want to make an innocent so sick.”
Health officials say Meana contracted hepatitis C at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada on Sept. 21; his case was one of a cluster of six traced to that date.
As a result, Meana, who became a U.S. citizen three years ago, no longer kisses his three grandchildren, an 8-year-old boy and two 12-year-old girls.
And no longer will Meana, who has had to tighten his belt two notches because of the weight he’s lost since contracting the virus, even think of being sexually intimate with his wife of 43 years, Linda.
“They told me I could use a condom, but I don’t want to take a chance. I love her. I will only kiss her on the forehead.”
When you are diagnosed with hepatitis C, “your whole life changes.”
“You don’t want to hurt someone else,” said Meana, who uses a handkerchief when turning a doorknob.
Only lately has he felt comfortable shaking hands, which he washes dozens of times a day.
Source Las Vegas Review-Journal 2008
Hepatitis C effects the whole community sometimes it is often wrongly stigmatised as a disease of drug users and this is very unfortunate for people who have never used intravenous drugs or their intravenous drug use was in their younger wilder days.
With the unchecked growth of the epidemic in New Zealand the increasing pool of infected people, Hepatitis C inevitably continue’s to spread in to the wider community.
It does not matter how you caught Hepatitis C, we all face the same challenges once we have it My peers are anyone with Hepatitis C .
We all play the same game of chess, and hopefully are still learning.
Best of health
www.hcv.org.nz
