Williamstown double liver-transplant recipient Ross Williams will speak at a hepatitis roundtable in West Footscray on Friday in a bid to prevent others from going through the same experiences.
Mr Williams thinks he was infected with hepatitis C in 1975.
“About that time, Australia was targeted as a market for heroin smugglers and my friends began to use,” he said.
“I had a few hits, not very many because I didn’t like it much, but I think that’s when I was infected with hep C.”
Asymptomatic for years, Mr Williams wasn’t diagnosed until 1996.
“Initially, I was worried about letting people know that I had it,” he said.
“I told my family and they were very supportive.
“I was working in a university and I let my boss and some of my colleagues know and left it to get around. I never had a bad reaction from anyone, whatever some of them may have thought privately.
“The fear of being outcast, of being seen as unclean – it didn’t happen to me, but it preys on many people’s minds, which may be why they avoid both testing and treatment.”
Suffering liver damage, which eventually stopped responding to treatment, Mr Williams received a transplant in 2008.
“My liver came from a man in his late 30s who had died of a heart attack,” he said. “Fortunately, he left no children behind.”
But Mr Williams still had the virus and by 2010, his new liver was failing and his body wasting.
“He was hospitalised in mid-2011 and given less than a fortnight to live.
Then a liver became available from a man in his early 20s killed in an accident. A year after his second transplant, Mr Williams’ viral load shot up and then last year a biopsy showed stage 3 fibrosis.
In May, he started a therapy that had a 50 per cent chance of success. It has lowered the virus to undetectable levels.
“I had hep C for nearly 40 years and in that time it did great damage to my life,” Mr Williams said.
“Now I do the little I can to help keep others from going through anything like that.” A panel discussion will be held on Friday from 10am-noon at the Whitten Oval Conference Centre in West Footscray.
For information about hepatitis, call 1800 703 003 or visit www.hepvic.org.au
