Healing power

Hepatitis C is now very much a curable condition, as Digby Hildreth can attest

Hepatitis C is no longer an incurable condition as Digby Hildreth can attest

Digby Hildreth’s life has hung by a thread too many times but perseverance and nothing less than a medical miracle mean he is now living happily on the NSW north coast and his attachment to life has never been stronger.“Life is really good actually,” says the 66-year-old freelance journalist. “I’m doing yoga and running up a lighthouse, swimming, gardening. I still do the work with the Byron Bay film festival, I’m still the media manager there.”But life wasn’t always so good. A period of intravenous drug use and some hard living during his youth in the 1970s meant Hildreth had unknowingly left himself open to an insidious virus. “I probably got hepatitis C in the 1970s (but) we didn’t know what it was in those days,” says Hildreth, who like the almost 185,000 Australians estimated to be living with hepatitis C, had no idea the virus was lurking in his blood.He went into rehab for his addiction, which enabled him rebuild his life to become a father and professional journalist, working in his native New Zealand and the UK before coming to Australia.But, in 2003, friends from his old life started dying, a tragedy Hildreth says probably saved his life. “I knew about hepatitis C by this stage. I thought I was the one who got away but I thought I better get myself checked up and, of course, there it was, this colossal viral load.”Hepatitis C or HCV was identified as a virus passed from blood to blood, most often during injecting drug use, blood transfusions prior to 1990 and tattoos performed in unhygienic conditions.Previously referred to as non-A, non-B hepatitis, HCV is one of the most common types of viral hepatitis, causing inflammation of the liver. Left undiagnosed or untreated it can lead to cirrhosis, cancer or even complete liver failure.“I went on to Interferon, the old drug, which is like chemo, really,” he says. “It’s injected, the side effects were terrible. I had a mouth full of ulcers, people have their hair fall out. It’s medieval. After three months it hadn’t worked.“I gave it another go maybe five years later in 2010. It lowered the (viral) load but not enough.”Worse was yet to come. A routine blood test in 2012 showed cancerous activity in Hildreth’s liver. Despite the diagnosis, he says he felt fit and able at the time and there were no outward symptoms of the disease, a common experience for people with HCV.After liver surgery, the tumours reappeared: “It didn’t work and there was a field of tumours at the end. In June/July 2013 they told me there was no more they could do and they wrote me off.”Hildreth refused to accept the prognosis and took his own path to recovery. “In 2015, I had cleared the cancer. It was brilliant. But I still had the hepatitis C, so the specialists at the clinic said you’ve dodged one bullet but this will kill you.”But help was at hand. A new drug was made available on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme in 2016 and the Lismore Liver Clinic let Hildreth know he was a candidate for the protocol.“They were having incredible results with this thing,” he says. “I went on it and ... now, three years later, so far so good. I don’t expect it to return.”Hildreth describes the new drug, a simple course of pills usually taken over eight to 12 weeks, as “a miracle cure”. “There are no side effects and that was an absolute miracle too,” he adds.Now his mind has turned to others of his generation who might have engaged in the risky behaviours of his youth. He says the behaviour might be in the past, but the hepatitis C virus can enter the blood stream to stay during just one error of judgment in your teens until symptoms emerge years later.The journalist understands well enough that stigma around past indiscretions might make some people hesitant about getting the simple blood test to detect hepatitis C, especially given its relative invisibility as a disease. “I think the problem is, it’s hidden in terms of its symptoms – it was for me up until a point when it wasn’t – but it’s also hidden because of the stigma,” he says. “People are ashamed to go and say these things to their doctor.”However, being frank with family and colleagues and even the extended public through a blog Hildreth authored has revealed strong acceptance and support for his circumstances.Now, he just wants to get the message out there: “I think it’s important that people know there is a treatment, that it’s hugely effective. It’s side-effect free (and you) pay minimal for it.“And there’s no shame about it, it’s just another condition. I do urge people to go see their doctor and just ask for the test.”Hepatitis Australia’s Test, Cure, Live is a nationwide campaign launched in 2018 to encourage those living with hepatitis C to speak to their doctor and find out about being free from hepatitis C. Call 1800 437 222 or visit testcurelive.com.au

Originally published as Healing power