I was diagnosed with hep c in January 2001.This was discovered after I was recently diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma 9-2000. During this time I was receiving chemo and my liver enzymes were elevated. I had a blood transfusion at the age of 5 during open heart surgery to repair a hole in the heart that I was born with. I have a great Hepatologist who performed a liver biopsy, stage 0-1, genotype 1B. I was put on peg-intron 1 injection a week. I stayed on this for 5 months, but the viral load was still elevated, approx. 2 million. The side effects are horrible. The next treatment I did was the peg-intron with Rebetol 1000mg a day, I started this in Oct 2004 and finished Dec 2004, the side effects where awful, nausea, diarrhea, iron overload, flu symptons, hair thinning, but the viral load did not change, so it was stopped and I have not tried again, am hoping a newer less toxic treatment to come. The non-hodgkins lymphoma is still there but growing slow. The chemo was tolerated better then the interferon!!I am 44 yrs old now with 3 kids, happily married to a very supportive partner. I do not tell anybody anymore about the hep-c, I do feel discriminated by this. Too bad people aren't educated enough to see his happens to innocent people, nothing I did to cause this, but people think its from sex or drug use. Its hard to put my feelings into words, but hope this helps!