Today I’m 100% free of hepatitis C. I had hep C it for a long time–more than 40 years. The day after my second daughter was born, just hours after I arrived home from the hospital, I hemorrhaged. Luckily a friend who was an intern was visiting. He raced me back to the hospital, careering his car through a Montreal blizzard. As I lay on a gurney in the emergency room, I had lost so much blood the nurses couldn’t find my pulse. I received a massive blood transfusion.
Back then there was no blood screening for hepatitis C.
Between then and now, I moved west and morphed through many careers, starting as a hippie soapstone carver, becoming a graphic artist, moving into journalism, and ending as a university instructor. My daughters grew into successful, caring women. My husband and I bought a former grow-op and transformed it into a lovely waterfront home. Life was good–so it seemed.
Then I learned of the hep. It was attacking my liver and I was terrified. But I knew I needed to confront my fear, so I did what I usually do in a crisis. I read books, articles, websites, and reports about my situation, and I talked to every expert I could find who knows about the topic. This disease could kill me, and at the very least I wanted to learn about it. Then to calm myself, I did what calms me: I wrote. The writing turned into a book, Demon in My Blood: My Fight with Hep C–and a Miracle Cure, which was published in 2017 by Greystone Books. As I amassed research and dug into my memories of six frightful months during treatment, I began writing this blog.
I hope this blog helps people with hepatitis C feel less 
alone with their disease. I also hope it gives them confidence to pursue one of the current antiviral treatments. I was cured by an early combination of these miracle drugs. I took two pills a day (sofosbuvir and simeprevir) for 12 weeks, with no side effects. This blog discusses my treatment and current issues surrounding hepatitis C. My aim is to connect with other people who have or had hepatitis C.
Thanks for reading my blog. I hope you you will follow it and post your comments.
–Elizabeth Rains
Here’s an excerpt from the book, from Tonic Magazine.
Hep BOOMers 
Elizabeth, it is so lovely to come across your beautiful, thoughtful and creative blog. Looking forward to meeting with you.
Thank you. It’s wonderful connecting with people like you who pour their energies into advocating for testing and treatment.
Pingback: A hockey and a hep hero | Hep BOOMers
Pingback: Ontario approves hepatitis C drugs | Hep BOOMers
Elizabeth, I’m a little late on reading your blog but was so interested in every word. Can’t wait to read more. Mary.
Pingback: Getting back into the blogging: Story and song event that Coasters will enjoy | Rains on the Coast
Hello friends!!!! my name is LISA CAROL am from USA , i want to share this great and wonderful testimony to the general public on how i got cured from my sickness called (HEPATITIS B) by DR ODIGIE healing herbal medicine , I have been suffering from (HEPATITIS B) for good 6 years now and I was almost going to the end of my life due to the constant pain, especially in my LIVER . all I have in my mind is let me just give up because life was no longer intestine to me any more but I just pray to God every day to accept my soul when ever I die, luckily to me , my kid sister ran to me that she found a doctor in the internet who can cure (HEPATITIS B, HERPES,CANCER, and HIV/AIDS ) she helped me out on everything, the great Dr ODIGIE only ask for my Details and some items , so that he can prepare a Herbal medicine for me and send it to me in my country , which he did.. so after two days of getting the medicine and taking it as prescribe to me from him , I started getting more stronger my blood started flowing normally , i started experiencing changes all over my Body as the great DR ODIGIE assured me that i should go for medical check up that i have been cured, so after some time i went to my doctor to confirmed if i have be finally healed , behold it was TRUE and i was very Happy ,so if you have HERPES , HEPATITIS B ,CANCER , HIV/AIDS or any kind of sickness YOU HAVE , you can contact him and also he do cast love spell , and any kind of spell you can think off or any illness get cured, i advice you all to contact him on Via mail at (drodigiesolutiontemple@yahoo) Good luck..
Thanks for your story. This site focuses on hepatitis C, but hep B is also a very serious disease. According to my research, there is no know cure for hepatitis B but it occasionally goes away on its own.
Hi Elizabeth, I’m almost half way through your book, Demon in my Blood and it is amazing! I could have written it myself, but i didn’t. I’m newly diagnosed with Hep C, which I’ve probably had for 40 years or more. Our life paths are so similar! I lived in the West Village at the time you were there, in the Warhol enclave. I knew Lou Reed and Velvet Underground people. They had their annual pig roast in our back yard at the bottom of Ninth Avenue. You may have known me — I was the girl with waist-length brown hair and tie-dye tops. (kidding) I’m in the research phase, trying to decide on the best course of treatment. I’ve practiced natural healing for many years, but apparently it hasn’t been enough to eradicate this shocking disease. Thank you for writing the book. If I survive this ordeal, I may write one of my own.
Helena, thank you so much for your comments about my book. I hope you are able to get treated soon. These days, just about everyone who follows one of the new treatment regimes gets cured. Very best wishes for a swift treatment and full recovery.
Dear Elizabeth,
My name is Richard Wood and I’m writing you on the behalf of MedTour Moldova. We really appreciate what you are doing regarding the people’s health and education. There is no doubt that you’ve already helped a lot of people and you’re a great example to follow. We are a young company that wants to make Hepatitis C treatment more accessible and to keep people more informed.
We will be really glad to collaborate with you. Please find below some information about our company.
We are MedTour Moldova, the company located in the Republic of Moldova. Since we started, in the beginning of 2017, we have been actively engaged in the development of Medical Tourism in the Republic of Moldova and our Mission is to make Hepatitis C treatment as affordable and accessible as possible.
The Republic of Moldova is a small country with the lowest GDP in Europe, where generic drugs are allowed. Moreover, Moldova runs National Treatment Program of Hepatitis C. More than 14 thousand people were cured of Hepatitis C for free. This led to a significant decrease in acute Hepatitis C cases from 6.14% to 1.23% in just 2 years. Statistics show that the average treatment duration is between 8-12 weeks and the efficiency exceeds 98%. This Program allowed Moldavian doctors to gain an invaluable experience in treating Hepatitis C virus even in most severe cases.
Moldova can be reached in a few hours from any EU country, so it’s quite easy to come here and get generic drugs for Hepatitis C treatment.
On a daily basis we develop the medical tourism, offer the opportunity for citizens of other countries to visit Moldova and get qualitative medical services at better prices. Besides offering Hepatitis C treatment, we try to make it comfortable for everybody: we buy tickets, book hotels, schedule medical tests, checkups and even offer a translator. This spectrum of services makes it faster and cheaper to get help.
Our motto is to be as transparent as possible. You can find the link to our website below, there you will see all the information you need to decide on our collaboration: Treatment of Hepatitis C in Moldova — MedTour Moldova
Thank you for your time.
We are waiting for your reply.
With Best Regards,
MedTour Moldova
https://medtour.md/en/