Hi my name is
David Levine, I am a single father and I suffer from hep-c
this is my story or at least a short version of it. I was
born in 1956 and had a good childhood, at age 11 I learned
to play the guitar then in the late sixties I found the party
scene. Man this was for me. I was one of those life of the
party people, I lived for it. Then in 1975 I joined the navy
and got my first tattoo in a professional shop. After that
I started getting tattoos in garages from people that never
used clean tattoo guns, we all just lined up and got what
ever we asked for.
Then in1979 i tried
injectable drugs I knew right away that that was not for me
but i did it another three times anyways, but after that I
stopped I knew that i was not on this planet to be a junky
after all I had parties to go to and women to meet and being
a guitar player I was going to make it big (of course that
never happened) But I had fun trying.
Then in 1983 I
decided to try and settle down, But that was not to be. Not
until I met kris in 1984. We still partied but not like before
and eventually we stopped and everything was set to be great,
We went on living our lives thinking about how many bullets
we had dodged i.e. aids, std's and whatever else might be
out there. Then in 1991 on September 11 we had our son Taylor
and life was as good as it gets until the bombs started dropping
on us.
In 1996 my wife
was diagnosed with lung cancer she was 37 years young, (from
smoking).They told us it was inoperable. she fought the good
fight ,she gave everything she had to fight the cancer, she
fought for her life, she fought for me and our four children.
But on January 31,1998 she lost her fight with cancer. Two
of our children (from her previous marriage) were already
grown. I was left to raise two sons on my own. I had one son
from my previous marriage (age 14) and one son that we had
together (age 6).
Now let me go back
to when I was diagnosed. In 1997 I went in for my forty-thousand
mile / 40 year which ever comes first check up. they checked
everything and found hep-c. My wife who was still alive at
that time insisted I do everything possible to make sure that
I would be alive so that I could raise our son. She knew her
time was short. So I stopped drinking and started eating healthy.
I promised my wife that I would be here for the kids as long
as I could and that I would do everything possible to stay
healthy and give Taylor as normal a life as could be. It was
very scary raising a six year old by myself. There were so
many scary things to worry about...what if he gets a fever
what if this or that happens, all the what if's.
So I went to see
a specialist (keep in mind that there really were no specialist
on hep-c back then) any ways they did a biopsy and found that
I had moderate damage to my liver. I had never had any symptoms
of hepatitis of any kind. I asked how can I have moderate
damage and no symptoms. My doctor gave me the "it affects
everyone differently" answer which is true to a degree
I guess. He told me that I would probably die of old age before
the hepatitis c killed me, Because I was very healthy EXCEPT
for that little hep-c thing.
They put me on
the interferon which did not work for me, Then they tried
the interferon/ribaviron which put me in hospital not once
but twice and it almost killed me.The second time my doctor
told me to stop and never take it again. MY thoughts (DUH
!! ) LOL. I was a total non responder. Then I lost my health
insurance. And when I tried to reapply they told me that I
had a preexisting condition and they would not be able to
insure me.
So I went back
to the drawing board...being self employed I signed up thru
a small business pool, They told me it would cost me 536.00
a month. So I wrote them a check for three months, they cashed
the check and promptly sent me a notice saying that they could
not insure me because I have a pre existing condition. Which
I told them to begin with? So I called them and said ..BUT
you already cashed my check,They said they would send me a
refund in a month. REAL NICE. So now I am without insurance
or a doctor and I am starting to feel more tired now and more
aches and pains...I know it is the hep-c calling me and I
am fighting all the way.
My kids are all
grown except the youngest he is 12 now. And no matter what
happens I must make it until he is an adult. I asked the lord
everyday to please give me at least until my son is grown....He
doesn't deserve to lose both parents as a child. No child
does. Thank you for reading.
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