ANGELA
Hello to all readers. Well, when we were asked to write these stories, everyone in our group at Open Door Clinic in Aurora had the same question: Do we have to give our name? I have not really shared my story with anyone beside my HIV family. This story will be my first step.
I’m a thirty-three-year-old black female and mother of two. I have a sixteen-year-old son and a fourteen-year-old daughter. Before I begin this story, I would like to say that I have been positive for fifteen years that I know of. This is real. I am real. To my sisters and brothers that live in life with me as a positive woman, love your life to the fullest and do not let small things get to you. Accept this virus as part of you and learn what you cannot change, and let go, and what you can, do so. Without accepting it as a part of you and your life, then you’re living a lie, as I did for nine years. Trying to block it out doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It’s not going away, so the best thing to do is face it. Today I’m happy, healthy, and strong. I’m living my life to the best that I can.
I’ve never had anyone to sit me down and have the sex talk with me besides at school. There was no one there. I left home at 14 1/2 years of age because I was abused. I felt like, why should I stay somewhere that I’m not wanted. In my childhood there were problems. At fifteen I was hanging out in clubs and dancing. I had to grow up fast and take care of myself. In the beginning I was never that person who would have sex with anybody. My first was my son’s father. I met him at fourteen and I stayed with him for about two years. At 161/2 I got pregnant and when I learned that I was having a baby, I was upset because I could barely feed myself and I was trying to finish school. I left my boyfriend and went home because I was not ready to be a mom, and he had started to say that he was not the father. I thought that he would be my husband some day, but that went up in flames. That was 1988. I never used rubbers then. I never really thought about it. I had heard about it, but I never really paid it any mind, because they were saying only gay men could get HlV. How wrong they were!
After I had my son my life changed for the worse. I got wild and ran the street a lot, just hanging out. I was doing things I knew I had no reason doing, I never did drugs. I started sleeping around a lot and unprotected most of the time. As a child, there were pains and unhappiness, and as an adult it just carried over with more pain and unhappiness. I saw sex as a way out. I’d look at it as painless and simple, and in 1990 1 got pregnant again. Now I had just got the hang of being a mom. Here I was on number two and again I was not ready, but I knew I had better get it right.
At three months I was told that one of my tests came back positive. HIV was the farthest thing from my mind—the last thing I would have thought I had. I did not say it was not true, because anything was possible since I had not protected myself. My world took the biggest turn that my life could ever take, Nothing can prepare you for when a doctor tells you that you have HIV. I finished up with the doctor. I went to the bathroom on my way out. I had to stop and think about what I was just told. When I was in the room with the doctor, it went right through me. I repeated over and over again: HIV, HIV, HIV, why? I had no idea why, so I started to cry. All I could do was think about the baby I was carrying but not that much because I never went back to the doctor until I had my little girl.
I was sleeping with two men at the same time and maybe the same day sometimes. I did not know who the dad was so I told them both and I never lied. I said I didn’t know who fathered the child. No, I never told anyone about that. That was the way I thought of HIV, as” “that” and as “it.” About four months later, I started to date a childhood crush. I had not gone to the doctor to get medicine. I stayed with this man for a while. I left again. I moved around a lot. I had a one-night stand with a person I did not know, again unprotected sex. I think that this was the person that gave me HIV. This was before I became pregnant or before I This was my thought, but I cant be sure. I just felt it was him.
So I have the baby. She was an angel. In the hospital they used to put a note on her bed that said, “Be careful of body fluids.” I used to pull the note off and throw it away. I was scared to death that my baby would be sick and I had to wait for two more years before I knew she was negative. I think that was one of the happiest days of my life. It was not over, however. It had just begun because I was sick. I went on with life as I knew it. I didn’t go back to the doctor or take my meds. I tried to block it out but it got me at times and I thought about it all the time. I was scared to face it or tell anyone because the world is so dumb to the facts, so I went on.
In 1999 1 got sick with walking PCP. It started as a cold that just would not go away. I had it for about a month. What I thought was a cold went from head to foot. I went to the hospital and they kept me for a few days and sent me home. I did not get better. I got worse. That’s when I found out I had walking PCP. I had a temperature of 102.4 degrees and still getting higher. The doctor was losing her mind because she could not understand why the IVs were not working or what kind of germs she was fighting and I didn’t tell her. I was playing a mind game. I remember going through the hallway to ICU so they could watch me and break the fever. The next memory is three weeks later. They said I was in a coma. I had needed blood. I finally got better three months later.
I was going to the doctor and taking my meds for a while until I got stubborn and silly. I stopped in 2000 and took nothing until 2001 when I got sick again. This time it hit me hard and I caught a bacterial infection in my stomach. I sat around for about two weeks. It got worse before I decided to go to the doctor. I was scared. I had no family support, It’s been me, by myself, for a long time. My little girl, my angel, said to me “Momma, please go to the doctor. If you leave me, I’m going to kill myself.” So I got up and went, but by the time I got to the hospital I had done the damage, which was nerve damage. I had to stay in the hospital for three months. I had to learn how to walk, cook, and bathe in a new way, without the complete use of my legs. I got depressed and for a while I just sat looking out of the window, looking at nothing, just space. I thought about all of those years I had wasted by being selfish about being positive and not thinking about my kids. My mom was not there for me, and today she is still not here for me. All I have is my kids, so I’m living for them and to teach them and be there for them.
I do not look at it as I’m dying because this is not true. I’m taking my meds. I’m living; I’m learning and also teaching. I’ll be the first to say we, as people living with HIV, do not need you to look down on us because of what we have. Look up to us as living with this and helping us spread the word that this is real. I have a motto that I tell the ladies in our support group: “Look up and never look down,” because I’m living and I refuse to die. You know, with my support groups, like the one in Chicago, and now the one at Open Door Clinic in Aurora, I’m making positive changes. It’s helping me help the next group after me. The doctor always told me that I was close to death. I would then ask myself why am I here? I know I’m not suppose to question God’s work, but truly I’ve found the answer—to be the voice of a person living 15 1/2 years with HIV.
I’m still standing and screaming because, believe me, HIV has no color or creed. It claims anybody’s life, so take control of your own life before it takes control of your life. I need to stick around to tell the world this is real and not to be making light of it, so please go get tested and the sooner the better. I need you to believe it can happen to you. This poison can get to anyone no matter who you are: a mother, a father, a sister, and a brother. Today I’m living, loving, happier, healthy and blessed. So please hear my cry—trust no one, know that you’re all right because not knowing is stressful.
Poison
There are all kinds of poison.
But none like this one.
It’s nothing to make it go away,
Only things to make it feel better.
It hits your heart, soul, your life, your family.
Everything changes.
Nothing’s the same.
You have to take control
and fight for what’s yours
and never give up;
that’s how the poison wins.