| Living with the stigma of HIV |
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| Written by Sam Taylor -Argonaut | ||||||
| Friday, 27 January 2006 | ||||||
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Somewhere on campus there is a normal woman, an Idaho girl, raised in a
loving home and by all accounts a successful student, who is
HIV-positive. She wants you to know that. Emily has asked to remain anonymous, for fear that her friends will be marked the companions of a walking death sentence — an inaccurate fact she despises — and be considered diseased themselves. She also thinks she will be treated differently if you know her real name. But the point is that Emily would like people to realize that she is normal and has the potential to live as healthy, or even healthier, a life as those who are not infected with the disease. She wants people to learn more about the virus so they can get away from stereotypes and stigmas. During the summer of 2005, the UI student found out she was infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, the precursor to Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. HIV destroys a certain kind of blood cell called CD4 + T cells, which are crucial to the normal function of the human immune system, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Eventually, enough CD4 cells, as they are commonly referred to, are destroyed and the virus has progressed enough to be considered AIDS. The two are not different viruses, just different stages of the same thing. When Emily found out she acquired the HIV virus, she was devastated. “That was pretty much the worst moment of my life.” She might not have found out about the infection, she says, if she had not gone through a general health screening, which she believes not enough people do. She doesn’t know whom she got the disease from, and says that while she has not had an “astronomical amount” of sexual partners, she did have a few one-night stands. “The doctor called me and I thought, OK, I’ve got some STD, that’s s---ty, but OK.” And then the results came in. “It was an unreal situation. The doctor told me I might have up to a decade to live.” That information, Emily says, is part of the stigma of HIV and AIDS — that people infected have been given a death sentence and will die quickly. But after she was referred to a health clinic in her hometown that specializes in HIV and AIDS, she was told by doctors that by taking the right measures, she would most likely live to an average old age. “When I found that out, I came back to life almost.” Emily says she was informed that current medical science has made it so that those infected with the virus really can prevent the disease from progressing at all. Since she was diagnosed, the disease has not progressed at all in her and is at a stage where she doesn’t have to take any medications. She only visits the doctor three times a year to check viral loads and blood cell counts. And while she now is confident about life again and ready to move on, Emily says at first the information was hard to handle. “When I told my parents, they were distraught,” she says. “There was a long time, the first three months, I’d wake up in the morning and give anything to switch or trade bodies with somebody.” The horror has subsided, and now Emily tries to live her life as normally as possible. Being infected did change her and forced her to grow up quickly. “I became an adult overnight. When it comes to relationships, I’m really careful. I look at a guy and I ask, ‘Do I think they’ll be accepting?’ and if I don’t think they will, I won’t even approach them and I’ll get over it.” Emily is mindful of her future career plans. With her college education, she wants to get a great job because she knows she’ll need health insurance. And she also has to protect her friends. Only two of her closest friends have any idea she has HIV. “There is this stigma, because if people knew that I was infected, they would look at them and say, ‘Oh, you share their drink, you must be HIV-positive, too.’ There are people out there who just don’t understand.” When Emily found out about the Kanay Mubita case, she also became concerned that because he was from Africa it would further the stereotype that all Africans have HIV or AIDS. Mubita is accused of knowing he was HIV-positive and engaging in sexual activity with 13 women in Moscow. If convicted, he faces 15 years in prison and a $5,000 fine for all counts. Emily says people also need to get away from the stereotype that homosexuals spread the disease, when in fact the most at-risk people are young women who are more susceptible to getting sexually transmitted diseases. According to the CDC, in 2003 women accounted for 27 percent of the estimated 32,048 diagnoses of HIV infection. Data from 33 areas (32 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands) with confidential name-based HIV reporting indicated that an estimated 8,733 women were given a diagnosis of HIV infection in 2003, and heterosexual contact was the source of almost 80 percent of these infections. Now that Emily has learned from the experience, she says, she hopes other people will too. She wants people to protect themselves, make smart choices and especially get routine health examinations that include HIV testing. “Of course I regret what I did,” she says. “This has helped me grow a lot. I was one of the people who stigmatized HIV.” She also says that the time will come when people do not treat her differently, that perhaps someday she will feel comfortable telling people. “If I felt like I would be treated the same, I’d walk around with a sign on me.”  Add as favorites (76) | Views: 1657
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