HAMILTON, Ohio — Stephanie Bryant is walking her dogs. Dogs that have gotten her through a lot.
“I never envisioned I’d have such a happy and joyous life,” she said.
Her brother died by suicide when she was young. And Bryant spent time in a mental health hospital.
“I have struggled with substance use disorder my whole life,” she said. “Drugs when I was 12 or 13. I was incarcerated when I was a teenager.”
After sharing a needle to use heroin in 2009, she contracted Hepatitis C. It’s a disease that affects more than 3 million Americans, and it’s one of the leading causes of liver failure.
For years, Bryant didn’t do anything about it. She was scared.
And she says the system made it harder, because she couldn’t get completely clean.
“I really struggled to stop smoking weed,” she says. “That might sound stupid, but it was how I stopped doing harder drugs.”
More than a decade after her diagnosis, Bryant now works for a methadone clinic in Butler County. It's a place that tries to make it easier for people like her to receive treatment for Hepatitis C.
WATCH: Full-circle moment for Hamilton resident who struggled with substance abuse
“We try to reach as many people as we can,” said Stephanie Asher, supervisor for a partner organization's mobile Hep C team.
Asher travels across the state bringing testing and treatment. She visits this clinic once a month, where she might treat nine or 10 people in one day. Her shirt says “get tested, get treated, get cured.”
Treatment for Hepatitis C starts with drawing blood to confirm rapid results from a finger prick. And the cure is as easy as a pill sent through the mail. Asher’s team also helps with insurance.
“We work in our field because we want to help people,” Asher said . “Not judge.”
So her team doesn’t drug test, and you don’t have to be completely sober to get help.
“Breaking the stigma,” Asher said. “One person at a time.”
One person — like Bryant, who wishes she had something like this when she was struggling the most.
“I was so angry and so depressed,” she said. “It was just black and ugly and gray. Now, today I’m happy and joyous and free.”
Happy because she’s cured — and because she can help other people, too.
For more information about Hepatitis C treatment, and where the mobile treatment squad will go to, you can call 866-WE-CURE-HEP-C.
