Michael Broadfoot liked to say that his deadly illness was “a gift.”

“I’m here to help for some reason,” he told The Journal-World earlier this year.

Broadfoot, an artist and a longtime Lawrence resident, died Friday of the liver disease hepatitis C, which spreads from blood-to-blood contact. During the last years of his life, he spoke out about the disease and delved into his past to find people who might have been exposed to it.

“It’s not just about me,” Broadfoot said. “Lots of people in America have it, and lots of people aren’t sick, and they’re carriers.”

Broadfoot, 52, had two tumors on his liver and died while awaiting a transplant.

He said he wasn’t sure how he contracted the disease but said “the lifestyle of the 1960s” probably was to blame. He studied fine arts at Kansas State University, where he helped start an underground campus newspaper called “Freedom Writer.”

“It was just as crazy a time as it’s been described,” he said.

He learned he had the hepatitis C virus in 1996 after giving blood. He began calling people he knew from college and eventually learned of 43 old acquaintances who also carried it, he said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that up to 85 percent of people who carry the virus will develop long-term liver infection but that fewer than 3 percent of people with the virus will die from it.

Most of the people Broadfoot contacted were aware of the virus and coping with it, he said, but some didn’t know about it until he called.

“I’ve been really open, always,” he said. “I knew it was the right thing to do.”

Broadfoot learned the disease had reached an advanced stage last summer after he noticed his muscles cramping on bicycle rides. He underwent chemotherapy late last year, and in January he described being constantly tired and swollen with water.

“My belly’s just huge, and my legs are so thick,” he said. “I wear Birkenstocks and can’t even get Birkenstocks on.”

His doctor told him the disease could cause confusion, but he said he didn’t know whether that applied to him.

“I’m not standing naked in the front yard,” he said with a laugh.

Up until a few months ago, Broadfoot worked in sales at Kansas Key Press, 900 N.J. Owner John Naramore said that as Broadfoot’s body deteriorated, his spirit grew.

“It kind of helped him broaden his viewpoint on people,” Naramore said. “It enabled him to go outside of himself.”

Broadfoot spent the past few months resting at his parents’ house in Holton.

“He called it his great adventure that he was to experience,” his mother, Mary, said. “He told me, ‘Mom, either way it goes, it’s all right.'”

Services for Broadfoot will be at 7 p.m. today at Warren-McElwain Mortuary. An obituary appeared in Sunday’s Journal-World.