My Story, My Diagnosis: Tom's Story

Tom, a father of 5 and grandfather of 11, contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion decades ago. After several failed drug trials, Tom felt like he would die from Hep C until the right drug came along and became the answer to a prayer.

Transcript

00:00

My name is Tom Brand. I live in New Orleans, born and raised. And I'm 81 years old. I'm a father of five and grandfather of 11.

00:09

When I was 40 years old, I had a blood transfusion. And I found out after I had the blood transfusion that I contracted hepatitis C. When I got diagnosed,

00:18

the doctor told me I had cirrhosis of the liver, which stunned me. He didn't really tell me what I could do or what I couldn't.

00:26

In fact, most probably the person that gave me more information than anything else is my wife.

00:32

I was working as a full-time nurse. And so I started investigating it. I read all the paperwork and all.

00:39

And then I suggested he go to the hospital, get checked, and see if there was any kind of study he

00:46

could get into. As drugs came out, we tried them. They would call him from the doctor's office

00:53

and tell him, take this medication by pill three times a day, take this one by shot.

01:00

It was pretty rough. I was feeling like I would die because of hep C. He didn't want to take the medicine.

01:07

I felt like that was the only thing he could do to get better. But eventually, there was nothing left to do.

01:14

The doctors didn't have any answers. So we just stopped.

01:20

They called us up and said, listen, we have a cure for hep C. And I told the girl,

01:27

I said, I don't want to go in another test study. I said, I've been through this. I paid the price.

01:33

I said, I don't want to do it. So she said, we have this cure, you take one tablet a day.

01:40

So we were just like, OK, yeah, right. And a couple of weeks later, she called.

01:47

And she said, we've got what you need. I have a wonderful family. And I didn't want to die. But that's what I foresaw for myself.

01:56

I took it for about a two-month period of time. We were tested on a regular basis. And it did away with the hep C.

02:04

He had no side effects, felt great, and went back, got his blood test. And he was cured.

02:10

I love living. I love life. I love people. This medication was an absolute answer to a prayer.