Patient Profile

Carol Spence, Age 53
Hepatitis C Patient
Former Real Estate Agent
Home: Belvedere, Calif.


"Hepatitis C is totally life-changing. I try to make the best of it, but since being diagnosed last year, I've had to give up my career, stay home a lot and have spent months in bed sleeping," explains Carol Spence, a 53-year old Marin County resident who is receiving treatment at California Pacific Medical Center's Liver Disease Management & Transplant Program.

Carol's physicians believe she contracted hepatitis C during surgery in January 2000 for a deviated septum. "Beginning that month, I thought I had a bad case of the flu since I was sleeping all the time and worn out," explains Carol, a successful real estate agent who had to give up her business after contracting the virus. She would start to fall asleep behind the wheel, pull off to the side of the road to take a nap and then awake two hours later. "After that happened three times, I knew it was more than the flu," says Carol.

Carol sought help from her primary care physician, who tested her liver enzyme levels and found they were dangerously high. She consequently tested positive for hepatitis C virus (HCV) and was referred to a liver specialist (hepatologist).

After seeing hepatologists in Texas and San Francisco, Carol switched to Robert Gish, M.D., of California Pacific Medical Center. "Everybody at California Pacific is so wonderful, and Dr. Gish is unbelievable," says Carol. "He makes himself available to patients and is very clear and to the point. Plus, the team follows through."

In October 2000, Carol started taking interferon, an injection drug that in some patients may slow liver damage or eliminate hepatitis C from the body altogether. "I always try to show my best to the outside world, but the interferon made me so sick," says Carol. "For me, the worst side effects were depression and severe headaches, coupled with sleep deprivation. I also lost a pound a day and would lose hair, and the interferon played havoc with my skin."

Due to the side effects, Carol stopped taking interferon after three months. "Sometimes when I think about it, I'm scared that there's no answer for hepatitis C, but the disease has allowed me to reassess things and I think I may find, perhaps, that it's a gift after all," she says.

While she waits for a new treatment to become available, Carol seeks to increase public education of hepatitis C and raise money for research efforts. "When you consider that hepatitis C is more prevalent than AIDS, you realize the disparity between the amount of money raised in support of the AIDS crisis versus what has been done toward eradicating hepatitis C," explains Carol. "There is so much more that needs to be done."