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Thursday, May 15, 2025

Living with HIV

by

20101212

The world over cel­e­brat­ed World Aids Day last Wednes­day. One of the main mes­sages am­pli­fied on this day each year is the fight against stig­ma and dis­crim­i­na­tion against those liv­ing with HIV/Aids.In­fect­ed peo­ple are of­ten sub­ject­ed to prej­u­dice, neg­a­tive at­ti­tudes, abuse and mal­treat­ment. As a re­sult of this many are shunned by fam­i­ly, peers and the wider com­mu­ni­ty. They are al­so, at times, ex­posed to poor treat­ment in health­care and ed­u­ca­tion set­tings–an ero­sion of rights and psy­cho­log­i­cal dam­age.

Dis­crim­i­na­tion can al­so neg­a­tive­ly af­fect the suc­cess of test­ing and treat­ment. Many to­day can­not come for­ward to con­fess their HIV sta­tus be­cause they are too afraid and not pre­pared to wel­come the heavy crit­i­cisms that comes with one be­ing HIV pos­i­tive.One woman who is try­ing to erad­i­cate the fear of that is Lor­na Hamil­ton-Hen­ry. HIV pos­i­tive for the past 16 years, the proud moth­er of two, felt free to speak out on this de­struc­tive ir­re­versible ill­ness.

Q: How old were you when you con­tract­ed the virus?

A: I was 18 years old at the time.

Do you know who you con­tract­ed the dis­ease from?

Yes, it was my very first boyfriend.

How did you find out you were HIV pos­i­tive?

Af­ter the death of my first daugh­ter. Af­ter the re­la­tion­ship with my first boyfriend I did not know I was HIV pos­i­tive. I met my hus­band when I was 20 years old and I be­came preg­nant be­fore we were mar­ried.

Our daugh­ter, how­ev­er, died at sev­en months old. Her death was not be­cause of HIV, though. She died as a re­sult of a heart at­tack due to her very rare blood type–A neg­a­tive.

When she died I griev­ed a lot. I stopped eat­ing and I wasn't sleep­ing so I be­gan to lose weight. Peo­ple start­ed say­ing I had Aids and that's what my daugh­ter died from.

Af­ter a year of griev­ing my hus­band de­cid­ed that we should take a blood test to prove peo­ple wrong. We did, and when we got the re­sults I was pos­i­tive and he was not.

What was it like find­ing out you were HIV pos­i­tive and your hus­band was not?

It was re­al scary and hard be­cause I was so young and I knew noth­ing about HIV. There was that im­me­di­ate fear that I was go­ing to die. With re­gards to my hus­band be­ing neg­a­tive, I was con­vinced that they were wrong and he had to be in­fect­ed. But to this day he is HIV neg­a­tive.

How is it pos­si­ble that he is HIV neg­a­tive?

Well, the doc­tors said it could be be­cause of his rare blood type. Stud­ies have shown peo­ple with rare blood types can­not house bac­te­ria and in­fec­tions in their sys­tem for long–they die.

You are a moth­er of two chil­dren and they are HIV neg­a­tive. Did you ever think this would be pos­si­ble?

Not at all. But with the help of my for­mer doc­tors–Dr Amery Browne and Dr Jef­fery Ed­wards, I learned how I could have a ba­by with­out trans­mit­ting the virus to it.

Were you ever dis­crim­i­nat­ed against by any­one?

Oh yes. In the ear­ly stages my moth­er and old­er sis­ter dis­crim­i­nat­ed against me and I lost a lot of friends. But the most painful en­counter I had with dis­crim­i­na­tion was when I had my daugh­ter at the hos­pi­tal.

I was cut dur­ing the birth of my daugh­ter so I need­ed to be stitched. Af­ter the mid-wife de­liv­ered my daugh­ter she sent for the doc­tor to come stitch me up, but she re­fused to come and the mid-wife had to lit­er­al­ly "cuss" her out and she still didn't come right away. I had my daugh­ter at 2.45 am and she nev­er showed up un­til 8.30 am.

Do you have sup­port now?

Now, yeah...lots and lots of peo­ple will call and en­cour­age me to con­tin­ue be­ing who I am. My moth­er and sis­ter have al­so turned around.

Do you ever get weary want­i­ng to give up?

A: All the time. I get weary when peo­ple say things that are not true or cor­rect. I get weary when I am out there fight­ing against dis­crim­i­na­tion and peo­ple still make sil­ly re­marks. I get weary tak­ing the tablets...and when I suf­fer the side ef­fects.

Are you afraid of one day dy­ing?

In my qui­et time I think about that and I fear that I would not be there for the wed­dings and grad­u­a­tions.

How would you de­scribe HIV if it were a per­son?

A silent killer.

What ad­vice would you give to peo­ple who still have un­pro­tect­ed sex?

Take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for your ac­tions be­cause if you be­come in­fect­ed with the virus it would not be the oth­er per­son's fault. The onus is on you.


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