Van Tieu with her father, Hung, who lived with Hepatitis B and a tumor that went undiagnosed for ten years.

By Van Tieu
Voices

It began with a battle of paintball. Three years ago, my brother-in-law convinced my 53-year-old dad to go paintballing with him and a bunch of his other friends in their 30s.

“What is paint-ball-eng?” my dad asked. He really didn’t know what he was getting himself into. But this adrenaline-pumping pastime would mark the beginning of a battle against a life-threatening foe.

It is known as the silent killer.  Once infected, victims don’t show any symptoms and usually don’t know they’re infected. The disease can mature into chronic Hepatitis B, a cancer that damages the liver and can result in liver failure and death. And of the 1.25 million U.S. citizens with chronic Hepatitis B, more than half are Asian Americans, according to the Asian Liver Center at Stanford University.

But on the morning he left the house with my brother-in-law and his friends, my dad, Hung, knew none of this.

They left looking pristine – not a single hair out of place. My dad, I have to admit, is a little vain. “He always takes longer than me to get ready,” my mom, Lan, jokes in Vietnamese.

He had never heard of paintballing, but as a veteran of the Vietnam War, he quickly caught on once they were at the course.  Everyone returned with dirt, welts and a rainbow of splattered paint that served as their medals of honor. But my dad fared worse than the rest. He had fallen on his wrist and hit his abdomen. That night, with a latex glove full of ice pressed to his wrist, he staggered up to his room and went to bed.

Weeks later, he still hadn’t recovered. He felt weak and had no appetite. It impossible to walk with the shooting pain in his abdomen.

The doctors took many X-rays but couldn’t figure out why he was feeling so sluggish and in pain. Then they found the tumor.

A CT scan revealed it on his liver—10 inches long and 8 pounds heavy. The tumor had been growing inside of him for over 10 years, the doctors estimated. All that time, he had no idea he had been infected with Hepatitis B, the cause of lifelong liver cancer. This is how it often happens.

“Many chronically infected patients do not seek medical attention because they have no symptoms, their virus is dormant or inactive, or their doctors told them there is no effective treatment,” said Dr. Truong-Sinh Leduc, a gastroenterology and internal specialist in Fountain Valley, Calif.

One in 10 Asian Americans is living with chronic hepatitis B, according to the Will You B Here website, a Hepatitis B awareness and education campaign run by Gilead Pharmaceuticals.  Many never seek help because there are often no symptoms when the virus is dormant. Without appropriate monitoring or treatment, one in four can die from liver cancer or liver failure.

“Hepatitis B is often referred to as a silent disease with a silent audience,” said Kathy Dong, project manager at Gilead, which is at the AAJA Convention trying to raise awareness. “The communities that are affected most, foreign-born people, they come from different cultures and they have different attitudes about things like health.”

Ironically, Hepatitis B can be easily caught by a simple blood test. Many organizations are now committed to educating Asian Americans about the disease and how to get tested

The biggest problem, Dong said, is that Hepatitis B is under diagnosed. Of those infected, 80 percent live everyday without symptoms or knowledge that they are infected, Dong said.

That was the case for my dad. The unfortunate fall that day led to the lucky discovery of his cancer. We didn’t know it at the time, but as the battle on the paintball course ended, my dad’s battle with liver cancer was just beginning.