Born With HIV

I have never thought I'd be alive to tell this story. On the outside I look and act like any normal teenager. But if you get to know me you realise there's so much more: I take 20 pills a day, see the doctors every three months; I miss half of school every semester; and I know that I could die any time. That's what it's like being HIV-positive.

I tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, on March 20, 1995. I was six. The same day, my four-year-old brother's test also came as positive. My mom had discovered she was HIV-positive a few weeks before. She'd read a newspaper article about it and decided to get tested. She'd been feeling sick, but the doctors hadn't thought of HIV at all. In fact, my mom had been exposed to HIV through unprotected sex before she married my dad. We figured she had had a disease for 10 years before she was even diagnosed.

My mother's doctors warned her that she might have passed the virus to my dad, me and my brother. So we all went to take tests. That's when we found out about me and my brother; my dad turned out to be HIV-negative.

My parents explained us about the virus and warned us that we always have to make sure we got our band - aid on the cuts. I remember going to kindergarten with rubber gloves in my bag because I fell on the playground and my teacher might run over to help me forgetting my blood was infected.

I remember getting sick a lot more than my friends. I'd get bronchitis every winter. Once I had to get picked up from pre - school class because my cough was disturbing everyone. Other than that, I feel myself as a sick person.

My mom got progressively sicker. She was coming down with opportunistic infections. She had less energy than ever. Her hair started falling out. Her muscle was disappearing. She looked 10 years older. By the time I was nine, she had to spend all days in the hospital, in her bed. She couldn't talk, move or see. It was very difficult to watch.

On November 18, 1995, a month before my 10th birthday came, I came home from a soccer game and found Mom had passed away. It was so painful that I went into a long shock. I didn't deal with it for a year. Then everything was back to normal. But the thought that the very thing that killed my mother was in me and my brother was depressing me. That could be me or him in six months.

In 1999 my T-cell count fell to nearly zero. My diagnosis as well as my brother's turned from HIV to AIDS and we were put on a new class of medication called protease inhibitors. These drugs have extended the life of many AIDS patients from the very beginning of their terrible diagnosis. You have to take them with other drugs for them to be effective. The doctors called it "cocktail" to denote a combination therapy.

The "cocktails" worked pretty good on me at first, but when I was in 7th grade, my brother and I ended up in hospital and were diagnosed with punctuates.

A few years ago I got neuropathy, which affects your nerves, especially in your hands and feet. I would raise my hand with a pen in it and the pen would go flying because I lost the feeling. Medications are masing. The can save lives but they are also very destroying.

Being a teenager is difficult enough but when you got AIDS it's especially harder. If I weren't HIV-positive I'd be taller. In girls, especially, there's something called lipodystrophy, which causes unequal redistribution of fat in your body. So my arms and legs were muscular, but I had fatty torso and a tummy. There's no way to get rid of this fat. I hate wearing bathing suit and shopping for pants and shorts.

Friendship can be hard also. When I'm around my friends I don't tell them the truth. When they ask me how I am doing, I say I'm fine even if I'm not. The disease can be isolating and you can't relate to people you like the way you want. However, I've finally been able to do that through community groups and at places like AIDS Camp, a summer camp for kids infected and affected by HIV and AIDS.

Then there comes a problem with romantic relationships. The disease is sexually transmitted, so there's that stigma upon you. I'm obviously not going to tell a guy that I have AIDS right after I introduce myself. But I do have to tell him sooner or later. I've dated but I'm not sexually active. I've been lucky I've dated guys who understood my problem.

Right now I'm still in high school. I plan to apply to college, then take a year off to relax, try to work and really live. I'm pretty healthy for now. Protease inhibitors do wonders and my T-cell count is back to normal again. I'm afraid, but I know I've got to live life the fullest and enjoy every moment of it. I've had friends who were healthy and said that they never felt better in their life. Then a month later they passed away.

I try to plan my future but I always get this little piece of a doubt that I might not make it.

I understood how important it is to enjoy little things. I don't know if I'll live another month or year but I try not to dwell on it...