THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 10, 1995 TAG: 9502090197
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAWSON MILLS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Long : 128 lines
Collier Aycock had it all. Luxury cars. World travel. Dining in the finest restaurants. A beautiful, educated young wife. A prestigious job with a six-figure compensation package.
Then, without warning, a silent invader attacked his body, costing him everything he had worked to acquire.
Stripped of the trappings of success and luxury, Aycock gained new insight into what has worth. Now, still wrestling with the medical and social consequences of the disease that nearly claimed him, he plans to bring a message of hope to others. The Norfolk resident plans to start an area support group for others who, like him, suffer from Hepatitis C.
The disease causes chronic fatigue and can lead to irreversible liver damage. And that's just the physical toll.
Aycock's success had not come easy. The 43-year-old Fremont, N.C., native moved to Atlanta in 1980 where he established himself as a top-flight salesman in a red hot field: pharmaceuticals. It usually took five years to break into management; he did it in nine months.
In 1990 he joined a hospital supply firm as national sales and marketing manager for two of its major divisions. He and his wife, whom he had met while she was studying at the University of Georgia, packed up and moved to Charlotte, N.C. The good life roared on for three more years.
Just before Christmas 1992, Aycock fell ill.
``I was working in the yard and started feeling faint, like I had the flu,'' he recalled. ``I was feeling really sick so I drove myself to the emergency room.''
It wasn't the flu, but the first symptoms of liver failure. He was admitted to Charlotte Memorial Hospital. Upon leaving the hospital unsure of what was ailing him, he visited an internist who suggested a gastroenterologist. The gastroenterologist mentioned a liver transplant but Aycock didn't feel comfortable with that so he referred himself to Duke. Doctors there said he wasn't a good candidate for a transplant but they did identify what was killing him: Hepatitis C.
Identified in 1989, Hepatitis C is a viral disease still fraught with more questions than answers, explained Dr. Michael J. Ryan, the local doctor who is treating Aycock. Classified as a blood-borne pathogen, sufferers often experience chronic fatigue. Symptoms tend to be minimal until damage to the liver, where the virus lurks, is irreversible. Until recently it has been considered untreatable, but the drug Interferon has caused remission in about 25 percent of the cases.
The disease gained exposure about two years ago when country singer Naomi Judd revealed publicly that she had been diagnosed with it.
Aycock, however, found he had a lot of personal research ahead of him.
After the diagnosis at Duke, he went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he had earned his degree while working in medical records to put himself through college. He found a surgeon, Dr. Hartwig Bunzendahl, who would perform the liver transplant. As an executive, Aycock had six months' medical leave of absence; that ran out in June. He was unemployed.
He got his new liver Aug. 23, 1993. He and his wife Amy moved to Richmond shortly thereafter. In March 1994, while coping with the side effects of his medication, including depression and sexual dysfunction, Amy decided to leave him. Aycock attempted suicide, almost succeeding.
After several weeks in a coma, he came to Norfolk, staying with a sister.
As many as 20 million Americans suffer from Hepatitis C, with about 170,000 contracting it annually, according to the American Liver Foundation. How it is spread is largely a mystery. Up to 40 percent of sufferers have no idea how they contracted it. Other cases have been traced to drug abuse, blood transfusions and sexual transmission. Some medical experts say that it may be spread by even minute amounts of blood on such common items as razors, toothbrushes and nail clippers.
Aycock said he is certain he contracted it during frequent sales calls to hospitals, clinics and doctors' offices.
The past 10 months have been a period of deep soul-searching and, as Aycock describes it, growing spirituality. Changes in the medication he must take for the rest of his life have reduced the side effects. He still has bad days, but there are more good ones now. Unsure if or when he may return to his old profession, he hopes to answer nagging questions and find new meaning by doing something positive for himself and others.
Until he is able to return to work, Aycock is living on Social Security and payments from a personal disability insurance policy he prudently purchased in healthier days. He hopes to return to a job similar to the one he left, but for now his plan is to address the social stigma and ostracism associated with Hepatitis C by starting a support group for fellow sufferers.
``I've become more spiritual,'' Aycock said. ``It saved my life through isolation, divorce, everything I've gone through. It's not church served-up religion but my own brand and it's still evolving.
``I'm still confused and frightened, and don't know what life has in store. You think you know, choosing material things. But now I'm looking to find a purpose in life by losing myself in something that will benefit others. The support group is my `raison d'etre.' ''
It won't be easy, though.
Laurie Thorngren, 35, has had Hepatitis C for 10 years. The Chesapeake woman started a support group herself at Sentara Leigh Hospital and kept it going for five months before becoming too ill to continue.
``Collier is taking on a lot,'' she said. ``I would participate when I can. It allows people to see they're not alone.''
Thorngren sees a support group as a way to deal with the feelings of alienation engendered by the disease. The uncalled-for shame. How the public misperceives the dangers and misunderstands how it is transmitted.
Todd Ellis, another sufferer, is a health care provider himself. The Virginia Beach resident can only work part time as a respiratory therapist because of Hepatitis C. Diagnosed with viral hepatitis in 1975 (before the ``C'' strain was identified) he has battled the ailment for 20 years.
Would he join a support group?
``I think I probably would,'' said Ellis, 45. ``At times I really feel alone. There are a series of emotions a person with a chronic disease goes through; it's difficult for the family. It would be good to talk to persons with the same problems. To gain emotional support. To see that I'm not alone even though I do feel quite isolated. And it might help other people understand.''
Aycock is trying to set up a meeting in an area hospital that has a history of working with such groups but has not yet ironed out the details. In the meantime he is going ahead and contacting persons with the disease as he locates them. He has already spoken to Thorngren and Ellis about his plans.
``I recognize I'm a better man now than I was two years ago,'' Aycock said. ``I wouldn't go back, as painful as it's been. I'm still angry at the isolation. But the story's not over. I'm going to be a winner.'' MEMO: Anyone with Hepatitis C who would be interested in participating in a
support group can call Collier Aycock at 627-1083.
ILLUSTRATION: Photo by DAWSON MILLS
Collier Aycock suffers from Hepatitis C, a viral disease first
identified in 1989. The disease causes chronic fatigue and can lead
to irreversible liver damage. And that's just the physical toll.
by CNB