Jude Hennessy had just given birth to her first child at the age of 26 when she found out she had hepatitis C, the virus which causes inflammation of the liver.
The everyday mum had lived a regular life up until that point and had no idea she had it until she developed symptoms during pregnancy.
"It's often contracted through needle use, drug use, tattoos, blood transfusions, but I hadn't had any of those things," she said.
"It's [contracted] blood to blood, so it could've been from a hospital back [25 years ago] because of how they cleaned things, or when I was travelling overseas.
"I've got a few theories of how I got it but no-one really knows."
Statistics from Hepatitis SA show around 120,000 people in Australia were living with hepatitis C at the end of 2019, and one in five people who had it chronically were unaware they were living with it.
After dealing with the initial shock of the diagnosis and the stigma that came with it, Ms Hennessy, now a Sunshine Coast resident, had to learn how to live with the virus and find out if she had passed it on to her children.
"I felt alienated because of how I had to deal with it," she said.
"[This included] changing my diet and avoiding sharing toothbrushes and things like that so I wouldn't pass it on to my partner, children, and any family or friends who may come to the house.
"I was basically told that my likelihood was extremely high to get liver failure or cancer [despite all of these things I was doing]."
The now mother of four went down a medical route to treat it, which at the time involved weekly injections over 12 months and extreme side effects including depression.
"It was extremely gruelling at the time. It made me extremely ill, I had rashes and I did develop depression from the treatment," she said.
"I was working and looking after four kids with my husband at the time, so it was quite stressful. But I did get that negative result and low viral load, so I'm glad I went through it.
"I know I'm now healthy and can live and not have that worry … and after testing my children I am relieved to not have passed it on."
Life beyond hepatitis C
Today, treatment for hepatitis C has drastically improved and involves a three-month course of tablets with very few side effects, prescribed by a GP.
And new rapid testing for the liver inflammation virus is being rolled out in South Australia's Riverland region to encourage people to learn if they have hepatitis C and get it treated.
Since 2016, around 50 per cent of people with hepatitis C in Australia have been treated, compared to less than 2 per cent prior to the new medication being available.
Hepatitis SA education coordinator Jenny Grant said there were hopes to expand the rapid testing across the entire state because regional SA's uptake rates of treatments were lower than in metropolitan areas.
"Often with the stigma that's associated with these viruses, people don't want to talk to their GP about it because are they worried about what their reaction might be," she said.
The rapid test, which is being rolled out to four Riverland pharmacies from early August, involves a finger prick similar to blood sugar test and putting a blood sample through a specialised machine which provides results within the hour.
"It's going to revolutionise how we can diagnose people because we can train peer workers to do it, making it much more accessible, much quicker," Ms Grant said.
Now living a hepatitis C-free life, Ms Hennessy encouraged all Australians to get rapid tested if they were given the opportunity.
"Knowing you have hepatitis C is the first step to working out how to move forward," she said.
"The treatment now is pretty straight forward and not that intrusive on your life, so the rapid testing is a really great opportunity."
