Last October 2018, I was asked by the British Liver Trust if I would be interested in telling my liver story to the Readers Digest magazine. Such is my quest to raise awareness of Alcohol-related liver disease, I eagerly agreed.
Two months later I had a lovely telephone conversation with a famous freelance journalist, Ms Lina Zeldovich. This was a transatlantic call to New York and the interview lasted about an hour. I wasn't taking Lactulose back then so I really don't know where the verbal diarrhoea came from. Such was my need to getting as much across as possible, I really did go on a bit.
Anyway, for a while I didn't hear any more about it. In March of this year I received an email from the Readers Digest saying that the story was ready for publication and was scheduled to go to press in the June edition. On the 24th May the June edition was out and in circulation. I was going to reserve 10 copies for family and friends. But I just brought the one copy to try.
After reading through all 144-pages, there was no article to be found. After a few emails back and forth, I've finally got to the bottom of this saga.
It turns out that Ms Lina Zeldovich, had sold her story to the Readers Digest International. This is a different company to the Readers Digest UK.
The upshot of this is that the story won't be featured in the UK edition as they don't hold the copyright. It is however available in Finland, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium or Spain. I don't happen to speak or read any of these languages so getting my hands on an English printed edition is going to be hard. They have kindly let me have a PDF copy though. (I'll be email a copy across to the BLT soon).
At least there's going to be a load of Europeans who now know of my story and who now know what I look like. (I've just gone and opened up a PO box number to handle all the fan mail, just joking).
At least the British Liver Trust did manage to get a brief mention.
Ah the vagaries of publishing. You do have a wonderful gift for story-telling Richard and a great sense of humor, so no surprise there. Congrats on getting the story out there!
Hey I contacted Oprah when I was diagnosed with Hep C, my thought was "this is something that could happen to anyone, not just famous porn stars or rock musicians" and l wanted to meet Steven Tyler of Aerosmith too, so maybe he could appear on the show with me? (I was living near Chicago at the time). Zero response, lol!😁
I look forward to reading more of your posts, no pressure!! 😛
Oh, my goodness, Richard! At first glance I thought you were the cover story and that the photo was you! ... and that they were relating a transplant to ‘coming back from the dead!’ I just couldn’t understand why they were referring to you as a dog 🐕 ... I thought it might be a British cultural thing? In any case, marvelous news and I do hope you’ll post the English language PDF when it is available. Congrats!!
Hi Richard, British liver trust asked me to do an interview with the telegraph newspaper which appeared in February about NASH, through them I've also been filmed for a video which was apparently shown at the international liver congress in Austria last month. I'm keen to spread the word that not all liver disease is caused by alcohol. I'm sure you will find a translator 💚
Well done Hilary, I really admire you for that. We have to not only get the message out there, but keep up the momentum, for fear of it becoming yesterday's news.
Hi Richard, what an accomplishment, your story is out there in the world do More people can understand this terrible disease, witch is not understood much , the symptoms etc. I would love to read the story but only able to in English. Well done once again for helping soo many others even on this site, big hugs Kalsoom 🤗
Thank you for your support Richard.
in reply to
Your most welcome, I have emailed both Vanessa and Natasha, with a copy of the article. They are both out, but should be back in next week.
Hi Richard64 , i wonder if you know anything about inflammation levels, I have medically induced liver cirrhosis stage 2 and have been feeling awful 🙁 mu inflammation level is at 19 had the test twice. Doctors no help is this level normal please help 🙏🏼 as I think you are very knowledgable about these problems, thanks in advance 👍
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