Hello to all the wonderful patients, doctors, community members, and patient advocates of this community forum.
My name is David Urick. I’m a 33-year-old man that lives in the United States. I was born in South Korea and adopted to the state of Michigan when I was 5 months old to my wonderful family. From the information my adoptive parents have about me, I have had Chronic Hepatitis B since birth.
I was taken to a hepatologist and told in detail about what it meant to have Chronic Hepatitis B for the first time when I was 13 years old. From what I understand about my Hep B on a somewhat medically literate and personal level, since my teens, I’ve been HBeAg positive with an accompanying high viral load (in the hundreds of millions IU/mL at some points). Even though Hep B was explained to me in a compassionate but still factual way, I struggled mentally after learning about the diagnosis and didn’t feel like I had an outlet to talk to someone that would understand how scared I was. This led to a suicide attempt at 14 years old and subsequently many years of struggle with mental illness and self-medicating with street and pharmaceutical drugs in my adolescence and early 20s. I talked about the possibility of medication in the future at one of the few doctor’s appointments I managed to attend in my 20s and I wasn’t receptive to the idea.
Fast forward to late 2018 and the end of my 20s. I’d been sober from all drugs besides the occasional joint of cannabis for quite a few years now. I consider that a time in my life that has passed but that I can always take lessons from.
In early 2019, I received a liver biopsy from the University of Michigan which came back with no liver damage whatsoever. I agreed to do the biopsy under the advice of my liver doctor, who is Dr. Anna Lok of the University of Michigan. I am extremely privileged to have had her as my Dr. for many years. However, I didn’t visit the clinic much at all from the ages of 18-29, nor did I receive the blood draws they suggested I get done twice a year to have liver function tests run. My message from this is that yesterday was the best day to start taking the best care of yourself as a patient, but today is the next best day.
After my biopsy, I started Tenofovir Alafenamide after a few months and a couple of visits with Dr. Lok and her PA (who I also wanted to shout out as being great)! My viral load has been undetectable since around 3 weeks after starting the medication and my liver has been very healthy ever since.
Some side notes about myself…
I attended a #justb storytelling workshop hosted by the amazing people at Hepatitis B Foundation. The reason I attended was that I watched one of the #justb stories on Facebook and was so moved by that experience. Someone from the Hep B Foundation reached out and invited me to come out to make my own video. Ever since that experience, I’ve been involved with Hep B patient advocacy. This currently involves me telling my story in various forums and to different audiences from my perspective with all the successes and challenges I’ve gone through. I also have written a couple of articles about living with Hep B as a patient.
When I’m not working or doing advocacy work, my hobbies include rollerblading both in a recreational and extreme action sport way, biking, hiking, cooking, gardening, writing, painting, reading, playing video games, and hanging out with my girlfriend and my two cats!
I am very much looking forward to interacting with this community. I’ve done a bit of browsing and have seen some familiar faces. Hi @Joan_Block and @Suwang88 
This is a wonderful place and I wish something in this format existed when I was a teenager. Sometimes just being able to talk to a fellow patient can make all the difference in the world.
I’d also like to give a quick shout-out to @ThomasTu for getting good information about the medical aspect of Hep B to the patients and people that need it. I watched your presentation on the last day of the World Hepatitis Summit, it was great!
