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Chasing a Cure for Hepatitis C | The Fix

dorriolds — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 09:32:42 +0000

Hepatitis C Cure

When I quit drugs and drinking, I found out I had chronic persistent hepatitis C. I’d contracted it in 1978 when I was 17. As the years went by, my chances increased for developing cirrhosis, liver cancer, or liver failure. I might even need a liver transplant. I’d heard about interferon and its brutal side effects, including suicidal depression. I had HCV (hepatitis C virus) because I’d been so depressed as a teen I shot drugs and shared needles in hopes I’d croak.

But, in addition to stirring up thoughts of killing myself, interferon would’ve meant six months of using needles to administer the drug. It had been nearly impossible to kick drugs and harder still to stay off them, so I was terrified that injecting drugs might steer me toward relapse. Interferon also had a puny 45% success rate, so I opted out.

A few years ago, I found a primary care physician specializing in infectious diseases and staying up-to-date on HCV treatments. He was waiting and watching for Harvoni (ledipasvir/sofosbuvir) to go on the market. “Now we’ll be able to cure you within 90 days,” he’d said. “And with only one daily pill.”

Hepatitis C Virus is divided into six genotypes. I have genotype 1, the most common type in the US and the most difficult to treat. In October 2014, when the FDA approved Gilead’s miracle drug, Harvoni, my insurance company refused to pay for it—three months of Harvoni costs upwards of $95,000. I was told I wasn’t sick enough. They were willing to gamble with my health, but my doctor wasn’t. He and his staff submitted appeal after appeal. I switched insurance companies three times, hoping to get Harvoni coverage, but to no avail.

Finally, I received an okay for AbbVie’s Viekira Pak with ribavirin. It costs $12,000 less than Harvoni and has a similar cure rate (97%), but Viekira Pak comes with a frightening warning: “It may cause severe liver problems.” My doctor reassured me that the treatment was worth it and that there would be no side effects.

My doctor reassured me that the treatment was worth it. He also said there’d be no side effects. He knew how scared I was. If I’d known how difficult taking the medication would be, I would’ve chickened out. That would’ve been stupid, so I’m glad I took the meds and survived the awful experience.

My three months on this cocktail have included severe gastrointestinal issues, including nausea, constipation, and diarrhea. I’ve had skin rashes and chills, confusion, forgetfulness, high anxiety and depression. The worst was the exhaustion, which often made it impossible for me to work. As a freelancer, no work equals no pay.

The ribavirin caused anemia, and I’ve had to stay in bed most days, not knowing if it was day or night. Instead of one Harvoni pill, I’ve had to take three Viekira Pak pills (two different kinds) with three ribavirin pills with breakfast and one Viekira Pak pill plus two ribavirin pills with dinner. If my husband hadn’t kept me on schedule, I would’ve slept through most of the doses.

Even when I set my alarm, I couldn’t move most of the time. Thank goodness I have a mate who kept track of the pills and woke me up at the correct intervals to bring food and drug cocktails. He also shopped, cooked, did laundry, vacuumed, massaged my aching legs, and took over full-time care of our dog. Without a support system, I don’t know how anyone could manage.

Hepatitis C Blood Tests

On the upside, my blood tests showed that my viral load went from 1,000,000 from the time I began treatment to 20 at the end of the first month. Now, after a total of three months, it is at zero. My liver inflammation has gone way down as well, and my doctor assures me that my side effects will cease now that I’ve finished the meds. Still, I wish I could’ve been treated with Harvoni and had known about the multiple class action lawsuits against insurance companies for not covering it.

Eleanor Hamburger is a lawyer at Sirianni Youtz Spoonemore Hamburger, the Seattle firm litigating two class action lawsuits against Washington state health insurers Group Health Cooperative and BridgeSpan, a subsidiary of Regence BlueShield. Hamburger told me, “We had people approach us who had been denied Harvoni. In most states, there’s just a handful of lawyers who do cases involving denials of treatment that people need by their insurance companies.”

She explained, “Here’s the problem. The insurance companies and payers, like Medicaid, are putting patients in the middle of this tug-of-war with pharmaceutical companies. Payers, whether it’s Medicaid or private insurance, have a responsibility to pay when all the requirements for coverage are met. The whole point of health insurance, and the safety net provided by Medicaid, is to be there with medically necessary treatment when those terms and conditions are met.

The fact that it’s expensive requires the payers to take action against the pharmaceutical companies to get the right price. What clearly should not happen and what has been occurring is, instead of pushing on that process to get to a fair price between pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies and payers, the payers have been saying, ‘No, we’re just not going to give coverage.’ The ones that get harmed are the patients. It’s wrong.”

Hep C Hadn’t Made Me Sick Enough?

When I told her, “Insurance companies told me I wasn’t sick enough,” she raised her voice in anger. “No one should be forced to walk around with a viral time bomb in their body, gambling on the chance that they’re not going to get sicker while they’re waiting. When you pay your premium, the whole point of insurance is transferring the risk of having that catastrophic cost to the insurance company.

At the end of the year, you don’t get your money back if you haven’t needed anything expensive for your health insurance! The same is true if you have a year when you’ve got high healthcare costs. Insurance companies can’t suddenly say, ‘Well, even though you’re entitled to coverage under the terms and conditions of our policy, we’re not going to cover it for everyone because it’s too expensive.’ The policies do not allow insurance companies to wait around saying, ‘Oh, but it’s so expensive we have to ration it.’”

Hamburger led me to Michael Ninburg, the executive director at the Hepatitis Education Project (HEP), a nonprofit whose mission is to provide support, advocacy, and services for those affected by HCV. He was eager to discuss updates regarding the Washington state class action lawsuits. The lawsuits allege that denying treatment to HCV patients unless they demonstrated significant liver damage was illegal and improper.

“We applaud the Regence group,” said Ninburg. “They’re one of the largest insurers in the Pacific Northwest, and as of February 16, Regence will conform to recommendations of the HCV guidelines issued by IDSA and AASLD.”

He said, “This change is important to HCV patients because Regence and its affiliated pharmacy benefit manager, Omega Rx, removed all previous restrictions on coverage.”

Ninburg then put me in touch with Sean Hemmerle, a 43-year-old ex-heroin addict and ex-con who is now a full-time college student in Olympia. Hemmerle served time in prison “for a robbery related to my heroin use,” he said. He was diagnosed with HCV in 2010 at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle while undergoing surgeries “to repair wounds from injecting black tar heroin.”

Hemmerle said he was sure he’d gotten Hepatitis C Virus from “sharing cookers because I’ve never shared a needle in my life.” When he was on his way to prison, he said, “I looked forward to receiving interferon while I was locked up. I figured it would be an opportune time to go through all the BS associated with it. Unfortunately, the prison medical staff, once they finally got my genotype and viral count, told me that I had too little in my sentence left to begin.”

“When I got out [of prison],” Hemmerle said, “Obamacare happened, and I got a primary care provider in the winter of 2013, who referred me to the liver clinic at Harborview in the summer of 2014. Once the liver clinic saw me, they sent a script for 12 weeks of Harvoni to DSHS [Washington State Department of Social and Health Services]. DSHS denied it, but the clinic appealed.

DSHS denied it again. The clinic then sent my script to the patient assistance program at Harborview, which contacted Gilead. Once the patient assistance program got involved, it was only a week before I received my first month of Harvoni. I completed my 12 weeks in July 2015 with absolutely no side effects, and my viral load was undetectable by week 5.”

He added, “I have loads of survivor’s guilt because I lucked out—literally days after approving me, Gilead began approving only levels 3 and 4 for patient assistance for Harvoni. Some HMOs, like Group Health, have recently begun approving 1s and 2s for treatment.”

While the drug companies battle it out in a price war, Merck’s rock-‘n’-roll-sounding pill, Zepatier (elbasvir/grazoprevir), became available January 29 for $54,600 per three-month treatment. Like the other meds, Zepatier has a cure rate of 97%. Due to its lower price tag, insurance companies are more likely to cover it. Unfortunately, Zepatier’s side effects are similar to those I’ve experienced on Viekira Pak with ribavirin.

Gilead has earned approximately $20 billion for HCV treatment, and AbbVie has earned billions from its Viekira Pak. It’s too soon to know how much money Merck will earn from Zepatier.

Regulus Therapeutics is the newest threat to Gilead’s profits. On February 17, Regulus announced test results showing that RG 101 administered two times in one month, along with a month’s worth of Harvoni, can reduce an HCV cure to a total of four weeks. Regulus is working on testing RG 101 with GlaxoSmithKline’s NS5B inhibitor, which would eliminate Harvoni. If that pans out, Gilead will suffer, but insurance companies will benefit. Hopefully, that means that more people with HCV will receive coverage.

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Health OP-ED Ms. Diagnoses: Women’s Lives Are at Risk

dorriolds — Tue, 08 May 2018 18:13:42 +0000

Hadassah’s National Call to Action for National Women’s Health Week • May 13–19

A health op-ed by Ellen Hershkin, National President, Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc.

Published May, 7, 2018 in Arizona Jewish Post, Southern Arizona’s Award-Winning Jewish Newspaper

Women’s health is on life support. Inequities in insurance premiums, gender bias, treatment and care must end. Women’s health doesn’t advance itself, so it’s up to women to be their own healthcare advocates.
Women have always been marginalized and treated differently by doctors and medical researchers. Although attitudes are slowly changing, women are still grossly underserved. According to the American Heart Association, one in three women die from heart disease.
Ms. Understood is a 2018 report (©Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada) that describes the “Ms. Understanding” and “Ms. Diagnoses” women face. It states, “Women’s hearts are victims of a system that is ill-equipped to diagnose, treat and support them.” Women and men present disparate warning signs before a heart attack. Hollywood depicts sudden shooting pain, clutching chest. Gasps and a stagger later, the actor drops to the floor. Women’s indicators are often subtle: fatigue, light-headedness, anxiety, insomnia, nausea, or back/shoulder/jaw pain.

On May 17, over 300 Hadassah members and supporters will participate in Hadassah’s Day on the Hill, meeting with members of Congress to advocate for Hadassah’s concerns on women’s health equity, gun control and for Israel’s security and stronger US-Israel relations.

Women aren’t just mini-men. Our bodies react to diseases and medications differently; most clinical trials don’t reflect this because the studies use a disproportionate number of male participants. The result is too many women dying. According to Ms. Understood, heart attack signs were missed in 78 percent of females; of those who’d had a heart attack, more were likely to die or suffer a second attack.
It is a long-held misconception that women are too emotional and our health problems are psychosomatic. Male doctors can be condescending and dismissive. Women describe pain but are told to see a psychiatrist. When males voice pain, doctors are quicker to offer treatment.
Chicago author Lea Grover had skin cancers (single-cell carcinoma, melanoma); six moles were removed. “I opt for female doctors whenever possible,” said Lea. “But only one dermatologist on my plan could always see me immediately.” She went monthly but he never remembered her or her medical history. One visit, during a pregnancy, her doctor said, “It’s just a freckle! Women in your condition get hysterical over nothing.” Furious, Lea reminded him that he’d removed four cancerous and pre-cancerous moles. He rolled his eyes and left the room, leaving her to wait forty-five minutes. Finally, Lea overheard the dermatologist telling a female oncologist “You’re a woman, calm her down.”
When the oncologist glanced at Lea’s mole, she said, “It’s nothing to worry about.” Lea yanked the neck of her T-shirt down, revealing a scar from a previously removed “freckle.” She demanded the oncologist examine her. “Finally,” said Lea, “she used a magnifying glass and told the dermatologist, ‘This does look like a Spitz nevus (skin lesion).’” That’s what it took to have it removed.
Many women aren’t aware lung cancer is a more frequent killer than breast cancer—even if they never smoked. Alzheimer’s Association determined women are at higher risk for Alzheimer’s. Symptoms include memory loss, confusion, depression, and irritability, so it’s often misdiagnosed. Women are five to eight times more likely than men to have thyroid problems. Symptoms include irritability, nervousness, sleep disturbance, infrequent menstrual periods, heat sensitivity, so they’re often told its menopause. Seventy-five percent of autoimmune diseases, including Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Graves’ disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus, occur in women. It can take five years to pinpoint due to illusive signs (fatigue, trouble concentrating). MS is three times more prevalent in women and often undetected for years despite typical signs (fatigue, vision problems, tingling and numbness, pain and spasms).
More female stars are going public with their health scares. The message is clear: had it not been for gender bias in the medical community, health issues could have been diagnosed earlier.
Lady Gaga’s fibromyalgia was misdiagnosed. Selena Gomez’s lupus was misdiagnosed. Serena Williams saved her own life. Williams knew more about blood clots and the risk of a pulmonary embolism than her doctors or nurses did. Women must advocate and educate. Our best hope is becoming a unified voice.

National Women’s Health Week is May 13–19. During that time the Coalition for Women’s Health Equity convened by Hadassah will hold its second annual summit in Washington, DC. The Coalition’s 28 members include the American Heart Association, Black Women’s Health Imperative, WomenAgainstAlzheimer’s, N.O.W., Planned Parenthood, and other organizations fighting for gender equity in medical prevention, research, funding, and quality care.

With over 700 chapters across the country, Hadassah has members in every congressional district. On May 17, over 300 Hadassah members and supporters will participate in Hadassah’s Day on the Hill, meeting with members of Congress to advocate for Hadassah’s concerns on women’s health equity, gun control and for Israel’s security and stronger US-Israel relations.
Women’s health cannot advance itself but together we can raise awareness of women’s preventive health services. When we educate ourselves, communities and public officials, we can drive policy changes. By uniting to fight for health equity we save lives.

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I Posed Nude To Get Over My Body Issues

dorriolds — Sat, 30 Jul 2016 17:04:47 +0000

Written for Woman’s Day
Posing nude helped me get over my body images and improved my self esteem. Meghan Trainor is my hero for yanking her video when her waist had been photoshopped. The “All About That Bass” singer told Good Morning America it was ironic, considering her whole song is about loving your body, whatever size.

I spent years fantasy photoshopping myself. I wanted to be tall and slim like Giselle, but my ankles were too thick. I was knock-kneed and short. My hair was brunette and my skin olive. I tried to wish away the dark fuzz on my forearms. I feared my face was ugly, spending hours studying blond classmates with cute turned up noses and wondering why I was so cursed. My rounded belly was the worst flaw of all.

Mirrors were tricky since my stomach could look blubbery depending on the angle. It didn’t help when others said I was thin or cute. I felt like the Michelin Man.

When I landed at Bard College, I was far away from my parents and felt drunk with freedom. Yet, loneliness plagued me while I studied the confident girls who wore bare midriff tops and tossed their heads back in flirty laughs. When their ringlets of hair bounced, the boys drooled.

Loneliness plagued me while I studied the confident girls who wore bare midriff tops and tossed their heads back in flirty laughs.

Confiding my insecurities to a dorm-mate, she said, “If you act self-assured, you’ll be treated like you are.” I had an impromptu chance one afternoon when my figure-drawing instructor said, “We have to cancel class. The model didn’t show.”

“I’ll do it!” I said spontaneously.

Heads swirled towards me, eyes popped and eyebrows arched, yet instead of losing my nerve, I abandoned my easel and headed to the podium at the room’s nucleus. There was an absence of fear. Instead I was now excited about the room of 20 artists who’d render my body. It seemed like I’d taken a dare to go on a brave adventure.

The teacher told the class to take a five-minute break. When the room cleared he said, “Are you sure you’re okay with this?” My heart quickened when I smelled his aftershave. I smiled and nodded and he said, “I’ll give you a minute to get comfortable.”

In the silence of the empty room, I pulled my black, crew-necked T-shirt over my head. Next I unhooked my bra. The pumping beat in my chest felt like conga drums until I unsnapped my pants. Suddenly I was overcome by an intrusive memory.

My mind drifted back to elementary school when I was nine and on a gymnastics team. “Everybody, line up,” Coach Tepper had said. “Today we’re going to add something new. It’s called a weekly weigh-in.” He held a clipboard as he explained a BMI index and the desired height and weight for a professional gymnast. Coach motioned to what looked like a nurse’s scale.

We all worshipped Coach and did what he said. When it was my turn to step on the scale, I had nothing on my mind but pleasing him. I climbed atop the wiggly scale platform. He checked my height, and wrote on his clipboard with a pencil while I studied his face. Next he moved the sliding metal piece and I awaited approval. Instead, Coach frowned. He muttered, “Hmmm,” like my dad did when displeased. “You’re too heavy, you have to lose five pounds,” Coach said.

I stood frozen, stunned, unable to move. “Step down,” Coach said as he scribbled on his chart. Then he called out, “Next.”

Now, in my college art class, I shook the shameful memory from my head and continued to pull off my jeans. A montage of near-naked, 5-feet-10-inch Victoria Secret models like Miranda Kerr haunted my brain. Thinking of their flat stomachs, I folded my pants and tossed my shorn undies to the pile of discarded clothes while I worried about my belly. It wasn’t flat like Keira Knightley’s or Gwen Stefani’s. Fighting to banish androgynous figures from my mind, I replaced those thoughts with images of voluptuous sirens like Meghan Trainor. My favorite meditation phrase came to mind: breathe in good, breathe out bad.

Tasmanian Angel Leads Hep C Sufferers to Affordable Meds

dorriolds — Fri, 15 Jul 2016 18:58:36 +0000

Written for The Fix

Australian Greg Jefferys was near death eight months ago. The exorbitant cost of HCV treatment set him on a sojourn to find generic pills. Now, he is cured and saving lives.

Dashing outdoorsman Greg Jefferys, 62, delights in kayaking, fishing, rock fossicking, and spending time with his family in Tasmania, Australia. But one year ago, he was close to death. The Fix’s Dorri Olds caught up with Jefferys via Skype to learn about this man’s odyssey.

“I was rapidly approaching cirrhosis and my doctors said I might have liver cancer,” said Jefferys. Like millions of people worldwide, his liver was being destroyed by the hepatitis C virus (HCV).

As is typical of HCV victims, Jefferys had no idea he’d had it since the mid-70s. In August 2014, he was diagnosed and told he had contracted it when shooting drugs.

“I left home at 16,” he told me, “and was happy in a kind of crazy way. I was a mixed-up kid living on the streets and couch surfing. I drifted from the hippie culture into the drug culture and became a casual heroin user for a year. Then, for the next year, I became seriously addicted, but I quit cold turkey after seeing a few friends OD.”

HCV is a global epidemic. An estimated 200 million people across the globe have the disease—that’s 3.3% of the population—including 3 to 5 million in the U.S., many of whom don’t know they have it. Seventy-five percent of those with HCV infection in the United States were born between 1945 and 1965. The largest group is those who shared needles when they shot drugs. Statistically, as many people are infected with HCV as are with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Without large-scale efforts to contain the spread of HCV and treat infected populations, the death rate from HCV will surpass that of AIDS by the end of this century and will only get worse.

For every 100 people infected with HCV without treatment, 75 to 85 will develop chronic infection, 60 to 70 will develop chronic liver disease, 5 to 20 will develop cirrhosis, and 1 to 5 will die of cirrhosis or liver cancer. HCV is also the most common reason for liver transplants.

Gilead Sciences, known best for its HIV/AIDS treatments, is now the leader in HCV drugs—Sovaldi (sofosbuvir) and Harvoni (ledipasvir and sofosbuvir)—which can cure nearly all patients within 2 to 3 months. The obstacle is the grossly inflated price tag. Sovaldi costs $1,000 per pill, and Harvoni costs $1,125. According to the Wall Street Journal, the sales total for Harvoni and Sovaldi reached $19.14 billion in 2015. For comparison’s sake, it took Pfizer’s blockbuster medicine Lipitor nine years before it reached its record-breaking sales of $12.9 billion.

When Jefferys was diagnosed in August 2014, he knew he could never afford the drugs he needed to cure his HCV. Three months of pills would’ve cost him close to USD$100,000. That’s when he began an exhaustive Internet search for an alternative. He finally found it in India, where the generic Indian Harvoni for the entire 12-week treatment cost the equivalent of USD$1,350—only slightly more than the cost of one single pill here in America.

Jefferys said, “Gilead has licensed four major Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers to make and distribute licensed generic versions of Harvoni. The four licensed manufacturers are Cipla, Mylan, Natco Pharma, and Hetero, and all their products are chemically identical.”

In 2015, Jefferys flew from Australia to Chennai, India. He purchased the generic meds and underwent his 12-week treatment there. Within 11 days, his liver functions returned to normal, and within four weeks, no virus was detected in his blood. The trip and treatment cost him less than $4,000.

I’ve dubbed Jefferys the Tasmanian Angel because after he learned where to find affordable lifesaving meds for his HCV, he reached out to help others. I asked Jefferys if he got the idea for helping HCV sufferers access generic pills from the movie Dallas Buyers Club. That’s when the Australian’s warm grin filled my monitor for the first time. “I watched the Dallas Buyers Club after I first started doing this. Watching it did give me a few good ideas.”

Unlike Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey’s character in the film), however, Jefferys is not motivated by money. “When I first started helping people to access affordable hep C medicines,” said Jefferys, “I never thought it would become a full-time occupation. But it has. I don’t want to profit from people’s sickness, though. There is enough of that going on already.”

Jefferys continued, “When I started, I didn’t think it would become such a big thing, so I did everything for free. When it started to take up so much of my time, I told people, ‘Look, if you can afford to give me a small amount of my time, that would be very much appreciated, but if you can’t, that’s okay, too.’

“Now, if I handle a transaction from beginning to end where someone says, ‘I want you to do everything for me. I’ll send you the money. You send it to your contact. You organize all the documents.’ In that case, I say, ‘I’ll charge a fee for that, but if you can’t afford the fee, then you don’t have to pay it.’”

He told me about a woman he’s currently helping. “She’s from Serbia, and her mother has hepatitis C. I’m organizing everything for her and doing that at below my cost. In Serbia, the income is about $50 dollars a week. I don’t want to make any money on that transaction.”

What about the legalities? Jefferys said, “It is perfectly legal to go to another country, buy generic drugs, and bring them home. Things get blurry when you get generics shipped to you. If you go to China and buy a box of counterfeit Ray Bans sunglasses and bring them home to the U.S. to sell them, that’s illegal. It’s a breach of patent law. But, if you’re in the U.S. and mail-order one pair of counterfeit Ray-Bans from China and have them sent to you for your own use, that’s not illegal. It’s the same with generic drugs. It’s the difference between buying something to make a commercial profit or for personal use. I help people buy medication for their own use; I am not selling it.”

Most of his work gives people information and honest and reliable contacts in countries where they can buy generics, such as India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Australia, and Honduras.

Why hasn’t Gilead gone after Jefferys? He said, “A Gilead insider told me that when I first started doing this, Gilead got advice from a ‘crisis manager’ who told them that if they went after me, it would just generate bad publicity for them and make a martyr out of me so. They have just decided to leave me alone.”

And it’s great that they did. Jefferys has gotten so involved in this issue that he was invited to the prestigious annual conference of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL). Jefferys said, “It’s been nearly a year since I was sitting on a plane flying over central Australia on my way to Chennai in India to find generic sofosbuvir. So much has changed since then. A year ago, my body was wracked with the hepatitis C virus.”

His eyes grew sad as he relived his ordeal. “I was exhausted most of the time and spent hours in bed every day. My blood was poisoned, and even my wife was scared of accidentally coming in contact with a drop of my blood. I was scared to play with my grandson in case I infected him.”

Now, his HCV is completely gone. He can swim or walk in the mountains for hours. On April 6, he flew to Barcelona, Spain for the 2016 EASL Conference being held April 13 to 17. He shared his story to demonstrate how vital generic HCV medicines are. He was among the top liver specialists, including scientific researchers, medical experts, and advocates fighting for policy change on treating liver disease. Jefferys even co-authored a paper by Dr. James Freeman from the Department of Emergency Medicine at Royal Hobart Hospital in Australia.

Jefferys said, “I hope Dr. Freeman’s presentation made medical professionals, particularly liver specialists, aware of the importance of generics, especially the licensed Indian generic hepatitis C meds.”

Last year, Jefferys studied the 2015 EASL conference papers for up-to-date information on treating hep C. “It was a steep learning curve,” he said. “Before I was diagnosed in August 2014, I didn’t even know what hep C was.”

I asked Jefferys what he thought of Gilead’s defense: their profit margin is justifiable due to all of the time and effort put into research and development for these HCV medications. Jeffrey’s response? “That is just bullshit. They didn’t put any research into it. They bought a patent, a finished product, and they marked it way up.”

He has no problem with research companies making a profit, “but,” he said, “it has to be a fair profit.”

At the end of our interview, I said, “You must have amazing karma now after helping so many strangers.”

The Tasmanian Angel said, “It’s a privilege, isn’t it? You don’t get a chance like that often. I guess once you’re my age, you look back on your life. I’ve had a good one, so it’s a great feeling to give back.”

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Face to Face — A Mother’s Story Of Her Son’s Attempted Suicide

dorriolds — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 11:02:32 +0000

“It was just before Thanksgiving when my son put a shotgun under his chin and pulled the trigger. He survived but the blast obliterated his face.” Judith Casey, author of the book, Face to Face, wrote the unimaginable.

As a native New Yorker, I have practically zero attention span, yet I read Face to Face in one sitting. The opening line grabbed me by the throat and wouldn’t let go. Casey’s book tells the harrowing tale with no self-pity or whining. It is straightforward storytelling. When I spoke with Casey she said, “I wanted to tell what happened and how people can survive and even thrive after a thing like that.”

In November it will be 16 years since the incident. Chris is now a happy and likeable wisenheimer. During our interview, when I asked how he felt about his mother’s book, Chris said, “I told her if it didn’t do well I wasn’t going to shoot myself again.” Involuntarily, I burst out laughing. “It hurt too much the first time,” he said. “Anyway, the doctor told me I was too hard-headed to die.”

Humor and willfulness is what got him through his long, painful recovery. On that fateful night Chris had gone to his soon-to-be ex wife’s house and they’d had a fight. She’d yelled, “I could care less whether you live or die.”

“I thought, I’ll show her.” Chris said. He and his wife had a two-year-old son at the time, and he had a three-month-old daughter with his girlfriend, Megan.

“I grew up without a father,” Chris told me. “If I had only thought it through I wouldn’t have done it. I would’ve realized that I’d be leaving my kids—who I loved so much—without a father. But that night I felt like I was no good to anybody and they’d all be better off without me. I went to my Step-Dad’s gun cabinet and grabbed a 12-gauge hunting rifle. I was a big guy, hard to control, so when my Mom tried to stop me, I pushed her to the floor.”

Chris said he then drove to a store, bought shotgun shells, went to his estranged wife’s backyard and shot himself. He said the blast went in a vertical line through his chin and missed his brain. His eyes and hearing were spared but his face was gone. The chin, jaw, mouth, teeth, nose, and part of his tongue were all destroyed and he’d lost three quarters of his blood by the time the paramedics arrived. He was assumed dead until one paramedic saw he was still breathing.

“I found out later,” Chris said, “that the shotgun never should have gone off. The round I bought was too big for that gun. Ballistically speaking, it can’t happen. But it did. And my face collapsed.”

Chris had a total of 17 painful surgeries over a five-year period. His mom and girlfriend, Megan (who is now his wife of 15 years) were there through the entire odyssey.

In the book, Casey described her arrival at the scene. The police wouldn’t let her go near him. “I knew from the way everyone was acting, the situation must be grave.” My heart broke for her all over again every time we spoke.

One thing about the story made no sense to me. I couldn’t understand how his girlfriend, Megan, had made the choice to stay with him. When I asked her she said, “I had no idea until that night that he still wanted to be with his wife. At the time, we had a three-month-old daughter and we’d already planned to marry. After he shot himself I was full of disdain. Lots of anger. I felt like he’d killed my boyfriend,” Megan said. “But I stayed for the sake of our daughter. It took a couple of years before I was healed enough to love and trust again. But after those first few years, I fell in love with this ‘other’ man, who looked nothing like the man I’d fallen in love with.”

Chris still has prominent scars on his face. After studying old photos, I commented on how handsome he’d been. “I’m still damn handsome!” he said.

“You’d be surprised how common these types of injuries are,” said Upper East Side plastic surgeon, Dr. Thomas Romo, III. “In the past, a patient with devastating damage to the midface would go through 15–20 operations, then endure enormous pain for long periods of time.”

That was Chris’s route. His first surgery lasted thirty hours. Then he had 16 more. I wondered how his mother could have afforded all of the medical bills. Chris told me that the first six weeks were covered by his insurance. After that he received disability from the State. Insurance paid to build him a mouth but then refused to put teeth in it—they said dentures were cosmetic. Casey was saddled with the bills that weren’t covered.

After waking up in the hospital, Chris said, “I felt embarrassed but learned to deal with it. The nurses wouldn’t let me have fingernail clippers or anything. I wanted to go home and had no idea why I couldn’t. I was on so many painkillers I didn’t understand what was happening. After six weeks in the hospital, they let me see what I had done.”

Chris said, “I never felt as bad as I did that night.” Being constantly laid up and recovering he had a lot of time to think. “I saw how many people really loved me. It was then I made up my mind to stop living a selfish life.” The self-will that nearly destroyed him was transformed into a determination to help others.

“It’s been a rewarding life, maybe not financially but emotionally. I’m happily married, my wife and I laugh all the time. I love my kids and I coach wrestling and baseball. I’m more than just coach, I’m part Dad to all the kids. I make sure they keep their grades up and they know I’m there when they need me. I never focus on the past, only the future.”

Because the shooting didn’t affect his ears and eyes he said, “I hear and see better than most people. But I’ll be 40 this year so I need reading glasses.”

The memoir left me with the feeling that there is almost nothing a person cannot rise above. It made my daily “problems” of short deadlines, inflation, lousy subway service and bad cab drivers seem frivolous.

To order the book Face to Face visit the author’s website.

This story appeared in the New York Resident magazine, August 2011.

The post Face to Face — A Mother’s Story Of Her Son’s Attempted Suicide appeared first on Award-Winning Writer and Graphic Designer.

Very Exciting Things Happening on the Work Front

dorriolds — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 11:39:40 +0000

This month’s issue of the NY Resident magazine will be available Wednesday or Thursday of this week! In it will be my book reviews of Emily Rubin’s Stalina and Kiri Blakeley’s Can’t Think Straight and an article about fun things to do in April in NYC including Passover and Easter activities. May will be a busy month for me too. I’ll write 3 book reviews/author profiles about Molly Jong-Fast, Mindy Greenstein and Steven Petrow. June a new magazine is coming out (I’m not giving its title away yet!). The debut of that publication will include an article about Dr. Todd Sinett, the best chiropractor in NYC! I’m racing thru life. Today I must take it easy. I’ve run myself so ragged I’ve caught a cold. But I got ants in my pants to work on all of my design work, writing, editing and social media stuff. Sigh… Never enough time in a day!

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The Shoemaker’s Kids Have No Shoes!

dorriolds — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 10:06:20 +0000

My work world has been a wonderful whirlwind for ages. But it’s time I took a breath and focused on my own blog for a minute! The first week of May my new Resident magazine articles will become available. They are 2011 Great Reads: Can’t Think Straight: A Memoir of Mixed-Up Love (Citadel Press) by author Kiri Blakeley and Stalina (AmazonEncore) by author Emily Rubin; and New York City April 2011 Events including celebrations of Easter and Passover.

In the first week of June more new articles will become available. Yup, told you I’ve been busy. Those pieces are about author Mindy Greenstein and her new collection of personal essays titled The House at Crash Corner, Molly Jong-Fast and her new novel The Social Climber’s Handbook, and Steven Petrow‘s Complete Gay & Lesbian Manners For Every Occasion. Also to come is a feature length piece on Dr. Todd Sinett, an unusual chiropractor and his unconventional and highly effective practice that focuses on healing beyond the symptoms but learning to prevent back problems. He is author of the book The Truth About Back Pain.

My upcomiong travel piece will follow my late June trip to a luxury Marriott Hotel in Cancun, Mexico.

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