Hello,
Tonight's assignment is to look at the following links in order to gain a sense of the clinical manifestations of HIV/AIDS as well as the struggles faced by those living with the disease:
AVERT defines the stages of HIV here.
WHO Q&A about HIV/AIDS can be found here.
WHO interactive media piece about women living with HIV/AIDS. Click on the links on the page to watch the narrative slide shows. Found here.
For your post, I want you to find an account of someone living with HIV/AIDS (anywhere in the world...and don't use the accounts of the women in the WHO slide shows above) and write a brief synopsis about what struck you as their hardest struggle and/or what their account reveals about the larger problems posed by HIV/AIDS.
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One of the first and most famous HIV+ figures, "Magic" Johnson brought attention to the HIV epidemic in the US and lessened the stigma associated with HIV. Johnson played basketball for the Lakers and also the Summer Olympics US team. He had to face the prospect of being banned from basketball because of his positive status; former friends and teammates protested when he was voted to play in the 92 NBA All-Star Game, although he succeeded in participated and indeed excelled. Also, he discovered he had HIV when we was married, but both his wife and child tested negative- he later admitted he'd had other sexual partners, so that must have been a hard family time. Magic Johnson created a charity called the 'Magic Johnson Foundation' to combat HIV and AIDS. His public affirmation of his HIV positive status helped change the way people think about HIV, although it must have been incredibly difficult to 'come out' and deal with discrimination daily. When he contracted HIV, the disease was associated with the 'Three H's': heroin addicts, Haitians, and homosexuals, and the stigma was stifling- and still is, although Magic Johnson has helped begin to make HIV socially acceptable and recognized.
ReplyDeleteAnna Ruth
On the UNICEF website, I found an interesting story of Livey Van Wyk, a young woman suffering from HIV/AIDS in Windhoek, Namibia. Livey contracted the virus when she was sixteen, and was disrepected by her community just for having the disease. Even her family turned against her, and Livey didn't know what to do. The birth of her own son inspired Livey to speak up about her and others rights as HIV/AIDS positive humans. Now, at age twenty, she is a trained peer educator, working with the next generation in Windhoek. Her goal is to fight the stigma that comes with HIV/AIDS and to educate and support young adults in similar situations.
ReplyDelete"I’m just a normal human being having this virus inside of me. Nobody can deny my rights.” -Livey Van Wyk
I read a few accounts of young teenage girls who were born with HIV. They found out at around age ten, and had trouble accepting that their parents lied to them about the different pills that they were taking. Both girls secretly stopped taking their pills, partly because they had trouble swallowing them and partly because they wanted to take control of their own lives.
ReplyDeleteVertical transmission brings makes kids used to the disease, which in some ways can help children live more in the moment or be wise beyond their years. It is also a tremendous burden, and for a kid in America where being cool is everything, not taking pills in order to attend a sleepover can seem like a good choice. In the cases of these two girls, they were so used to HIV that they were not scared enough to take their pills, they didn’t seem to appreciate that the virus would become resistant and would eventually become ineffective. At the same time it would be unjust to blame them, their parents put them in this situation by not getting tested for HIV, they are different from all of their friends, and they have to carry around the knowledge that they will die an early and painful death. This issue of pills also brings up the issue whether to live a few good years without the side effects of the drugs, or live longer and yet more painful years. Contracting HIV vertically does not leave a sense of regret for having unprotected sex, yet it leaves a sense that one was born wrong.
I found this woman's touching story on the AVERT website. AVERT is an international charity based in the UK, used to help avert the exposure of HIV/AIDS. There is a section of the website with stories submitted by women living with HIV/AIDS. I spent time reading the majority of the stories, one that first struck me was one from a woman named Sheree.
ReplyDeleteSheree is 52 years old and has been HIV+ since 2002. She had been in a relationship with a man who she didn't know was HIV+ until he died of AIDS. She has been out of work on disability for 6 years, and has found God in the process. She believes that God is the one who is getting her through her illness. In the beginning, no one would accept her for treatment, so she has to drive 60 miles every time she needs to get treatment medication.
I blame myself for being stupid and not using protection.I have been shunned by most of my family,but that is o.k. with me.I figure it is their loss not mine.
-Sheree
Madeline Allen
I read this story about HIV+ schoolchildren in the United Kingdom.
ReplyDeleteThe Disability Discrimination Act of 2005 made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of HIV status in the UK. Nevertheless, schools across the country are ignoring the rules, with adverse effects on the approximately 1,500 HIV-positive children the law was designed to protect.
One major question in this issue is whether parents should be forced to disclose their children’s HIV status. The article cites examples of children being turned away from schools or bullied when their positive diagnosis (or that of their parents) was revealed. At the root of this stigma and fear seems to be the misconception that young students could spread HIV through biting, being scraped, or sharing utensils or toilet seats. However, as one mother in the article said, “There’s no risk to the other children—if anything there's a risk to my daughter.” The UK and other countries need to accompany their anti-discrimination laws with HIV educations programs to increase understanding and acceptance of the disease.
Of the several accounts I read, the one that stood out the most to me was that of a middle aged woman named Beatriz with three children.
ReplyDeleteHer struggles with HIV progressed gradually over time, and began as soon as she was diagnosed. I had expected the struggles would be related to the intensive treatment and possibly some social misunderstanding about the disease that would cause her to be judged.
I was then surprised to read that her main struggles stemmed from within. For several months, Beatriz went about living as though she was unaware she had aids, the only difference being she underwent false superstitions about cleanliness such as not sharing plates with her children, based on false impressions on the infectious nature of HIV. When it finally sank in, she closed herself off in her house for 12 days, never answering the door for the many people who came to check on her. It was not until her best friend came and insisted that she open the door when Beatriz finally broke down in the emotional realization that her life had fundamentally changed.
Beatriz's realization came when her friend forced her to view the situation from her kids' perspective, and from then on Beatriz decided that she had to seek treatment.
What surprised me most is that Beatriz's experience when she finally admitted to the world she was infected with HIV was exactly the opposite of my predictions. Beatriz found that her friends and co-workers were much more well informed than I had expected, and as opposed to rejecting her for false assumptions of contagion, their was an outpouring of good will and prayers from those in her community.
This led her to finally seek treatment and her social outlook actually improved and the stress in her life decreased.
I read a story about a man named Pat. Pat is around 50 years old and has had HIV/AIDS for the past 27 years. When he was diagnosed back in 1982 he did not give it much thought and kept having unprotected sex. Then in 2001 he was feeling sick so he went to the hospital and they told him that he has AIDS. He soon started treatment but there is a good chance that he will not survive because soon he will become resistant to the drugs that he is taking.
ReplyDeleteI listened and read some other stories of men and women with HIV/AIDS and what struck me the most was that even while these people were taking their medicine they still felt awful. The side affects are so torturous that sometimes they don’t feel like moving so that farces their spouse or partner to take on all the responsibilities of the house plus taking care of the patients. I realized that there is a lot more work than just swallowing a pill everyday, but that most of the time HIV/AIDS will affect everyone around that person.
For my post I found a woman, at the age of seventeen whose dreams were tragically crushed due to her boyfriend’s drug addiction. Though I pondered around the website I saw many cases of teenage both male and female who contracted the virus at birth, and although their stories are quite horrific, this teens dreams were ruined due to an irresponsible dedication to drugs on her boyfriends part.
ReplyDeleteAudrey at the age of seventeen was just sworn into the military, looking forward to every opportunity it brought to her. Especially the fact that her family was quite poor and her parents were not able to afford college. Though with the GI bill, in the future it was possible. A few weeks after applying and getting sworn into the Army National Guard, Audrey got a letter from them, hoping it was reinstating her eligibility to take part In the ANG, though it was something that would change her life forever. The letter had stated that she was not able to every join the military, and needed to go contact a physician as soon as possible. When she went to the doctors, she had found out that through her boyfriend doing what seemed like somewhat harmless drugs, she contracted HIV. As this was now the case, her life plans were ruined, and aspirations were destroyed all due to the fact in which her boyfriend felt the need to shoot up.
As her life has continued on having monthly blood tests, making sure that her immune system hasn’t failed; her mother is having a hard time keeping her on the expensive drugs which keep her alive. Just as she feels like giving up, (which is a quite common symptom of HIV/AIDS) she continually tells herself that she is till living even with one of the most deadly viruses attacking her immune system, and she is walking proof that she’s still the same person but with a little more drive and cautiousness.
Now she’s looking at her HIV/AIDS issues as more of a wake up call and telling herself she needs to consider her body and health much more seriously, though not letting the virus run her life.
This article along with all of the others I read strikes me as horrific and terrifying. When I see cases like this it makes me feel appreciative for the health condition I have even though we continually complain about the small issues we encounter. As many of the children don’t have access to treatments (especially in other countries) this causes them to die. But even controlling the virus it takes a lot away from the life that a normal teenage boy/girl should have.
Searching for HIV/AID stories online opens up a whole new awareness for me. As much as I have studied HIV/AIDS in Sex Education classes, reading about personal experiences is completely different.
ReplyDeleteOne story that I find extremely interesting is of a woman named Rachel, who was diagnosed in 1996 as HIV positive. She had just come out of a relationship with an unfaithful partner, and shortly after the separation, he came to her with the news that he had been tested HIV positive. She then proceeded to get tested for HIV, and soon found out her diagnosis was positive.
After some expected reactions,shock, anger, grief, Rachel realized that the diagnosis wasn't a death sentence, and promised herself to carry on with her life.
Not long after this, Rachel became very ill for a period, which caused her to reflect on her life so far; what she had done, and what she had left to accomplish. With the help of medications, Rachel was able to do normal activities, and decided to try belly dancing. It was something she'd always been inexplicably drawn to.
She currently resides in Southern Indiana, teaching both adults, college students, and public-school children the art of beginning belly dancing. She is also part of a professional dance troupe.
"I still have traces of lipodystrophy in my body, but today that is not all I see when I look in the mirror. Instead, I see a beautiful, strong woman who has learned to open her heart, let go of her pain, and embrace the joys of life. And all this came from belly dancing!"
- Rachel
Elana
I was mostly drawn to the narratives of teenagers living with a positive HIV status; it seemed like a particularly difficult time of life to carry a burden that so acutely distinguishes one from his or her peers. One “story” stuck with me in particular. It was written by an 18 year old named Maria. She was born with HIV having gotten the virus from her mother, who died when Maria was 3 years old. Unlike the entries of many other teens, Maria did not seem to bear any resentment towards her parents for not informing her of her health condition early enough in life or for being reckless when they were younger so as to contract HIV and pass it on to her. Maria did discuss what I realized as a common issue amongst teenagers especially. Maria’s compliance with medication was erratic at best in her younger years. She had completely given them up for 9 years at the point when the story was written. She was doing well with a steady boyfriend and future aspirations, but despite her relative success, to me this represents a very dangerous commonality.
ReplyDeleteAs we discussed in class, HIV replicates very quickly thus giving it chance to mutate into a drug resistant form at an alarming rate. Taking medication with such painful side effects would be very testing and demand a lot of determination. It would be a very hard life. I think that living a long life is worth striving for, even if it is made uncomfortable by harsh medicines, though there are definitely two defendable perspectives on the issue. The way I see it, HIV is a difficult virus to tackle only made more impossible by an inconsistence in following through with treatment, as strains are developing with a resistance to current drugs.