Mother-of-two Gill Fyffe contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion given after the birth of her second child in 1988.
She suffered debilitating symptoms which had a major impact on her life - in particular extreme fatigue - but did not know she had been infected until seven years later.
The former teacher, 55, who now lives in London but was born in Dundee, was eventually successfully treated for the virus. However as a result of the powerful drugs she took she later developed an autoimmune reaction, which has left her with an extreme sensitivity to sunlight and unable to work.
She said: "I hadn't heard of hepatitis C when my daughter was born. I was covering up how exhausted I was, as I just felt I was not coping. I resigned from my teaching post as I would literally come home at the end of lessons, collapse and fall asleep.
"One day I fell asleep at the wheel and crashed my car with the children in it. We began to think there is something not right.
"When my daughter was seven years old, I received a letter from the blood transfusion service saying the (blood) donor had hepatitis and I should get tested. When I realised I might have contaminated the children I absolutely lost it - I was in complete panic and screaming my head off to go get the doctor."
Luckily her husband and two children were given the all-clear. However at one point the family were preparing for the worst as Fyffe believed she only had two years left to live.
She has now written a memoir of her family's experiences, called LifeBlood, which is being published tomorrow by Glasgow publishing house Freight Books.
Fyffe is also planning to attend the launch of the Penrose Inquiry final report on Wednesday, which she believes will mark an important step for the victims.
"Anything which allows people to understand what has happened and for that to be officially recognised makes an enormous difference," she said. "If the Penrose Inquiry can say what has happened, that will make a huge difference to the people who are coping with the consequences of all this."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article