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I¡¯ve never taken illegal drugs, and the only time I ever had a needle in my arm was when a doctor was on the other side of it. So my best guess is that I contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion I received after a car accident when I was 19.

Back in 1985, donated blood wasn¡¯t tested for hepatitis C, as it hadn¡¯t really been identified yet. Then, it was just known as ¡°non-A/B hepatitis.¡± And for years, the only real treatment was a combination of interferon and ribavirin, which wasn¡¯t very effective and caused unpleasant side effects.

So, when I found out I had hepatitis C in 2009 (from a blood test performed for a life insurance application), I figured I only had about 10 good years left. My son was 2 then, and I realized while changing his diaper one day that I probably wouldn¡¯t live to see him graduate. I thought about getting my affairs in order.

Then, one day I overheard a doctor say that most people who have hepatitis C will die with the disease, but not from the disease. It took being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in December 2015 to learn that MD Anderson could cure me of both.

A non-Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis

I discovered I had cancer when I went to the doctor about a lump in my throat. I¡¯d let it go for several months, but it grew and shrank several times before I¡¯d finally had enough.

My doctor said the lump was probably a ¡°thyroglossal duct cyst,¡± or a growth on my thyroid, and referred me to an ENT for confirmation. The second doctor agreed, so we scheduled surgery to remove it. But the lump turned out to be a swollen lymph node. A biopsy revealed it was non-Hodgkin lymphoma. My family doctor referred me to MD Anderson, so I made an appointment at the location closest to my home, MD Anderson in Katy.

There, I met with Dr. Nikesh Jasani. He asked MD Anderson pathologists to re-examine the specimen from my throat and ordered additional scans. Those showed I had a mass in my stomach and nodules in my spleen, lungs and throat. That made my cancer stage IV. He also refined my non-Hodgkin¡¯s lymphoma diagnosis to a subtype called Marginal Zone Lymphoma, or MZL.

The hepatitis C drug that helped shrink my cancer

Dr. Jasani referred me to and for additional treatment at MD Anderson¡¯s Texas Medical Center location. When I met with them, I asked whether we were going to tackle the hepatitis C or the lymphoma first. To my surprise, they said ¡°both,¡± because lymphoma has proven very responsive to a new drug for treating hepatitis C.

I took ledipasvir/sofosbuvir for 12 weeks, and by the end of the second one, the hepatitis was undetectable in my system. The only side effect I experienced was a slight headache sometimes. And though the drug shrank all the nodules away into nothing, it didn¡¯t reduce the mass in my stomach. An additional biopsy found that my cancer had advanced. The mass was a different kind of non-Hodgkin lymphoma: diffuse B-cell.

To treat the remaining cancer, I completed six months of ¡°R-CHOP¡± chemotherapy (rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisone) in 2016. And I¡¯ve shown no evidence of disease since December of that year. Now, I¡¯m just on a ¡°maintenance¡± chemo ¡ª a targeted therapy called rituximab ¡ª to extend my remission time, and maybe stop the cancer from coming back at all.

Why I urge other cancer patients to get tested for hepatitis C

I didn¡¯t know that having hepatitis C put people at greater risk for developing marginal zone lymphoma and other cancers, but I do now. So, I tell everyone who¡¯s been diagnosed with cancer to get tested for it.

Treatment options were so limited when I was first diagnosed with hepatitis C that my primary care doctor suggested I take a ¡°wait and see¡± approach. At that time, the medicine I took to treat it was still being developed.

But the future is so bright now for people with hepatitis C. There¡¯s a new drug at hand with a phenomenal cure rate, and a lot of people have been waiting a long time for it. My treatment was an unqualified success.

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