Pat Gelineau’s life story is playing out with more than one unpredictable comeback. While serving prison time for robbery, she took up flower arranging and found paid work at it. Then she kicked a heroin habit that pushed her to crime in the first place.
Now the 58-year-old no longer carries the hepatitis C virus she picked up during her years as an addict, but her biggest comeback is still ahead: healing her severely damaged liver and returning to health.
Gelineau is the new face of hepatitis C treatment in B.C. and Canada. Formerly incurable – or sometimes knocked back by a punishing regimen of pills and interferon shots – the virus has been cleared from Gelineau’s system by a new line of daily anti-viral pills.
But instead of a “game-changing” cure, as many doctors and patient advocates call it, Gelineau says she’s still laid low by advanced cirrhosis of the liver. Drained of energy, Gelineau spends much of her time in bed with headaches and can’t help her daughter with her new baby, even though they live blocks apart in Burnaby.
“If I was well, I’d be coming over everyday,” she said in recent weeks. “I’m exhausted all the time. I’m not even answering the phone.”