"I support you. I want to share to you what a good friend once told me before I decide my public disclosure... "we are in this together."
"We are in this together", that was the line that Tag told me when I was bedridden with pneumonia in the hospital. It was reassuring, really, to know that there is somebody who cares for you. Ever since I found out that I have HIV I told myself that the disease won't stop my life. Instead it triggered something in me to have a new mission in life: to assist, to support, to help my fellow PLHIV's. For a year now, I have been doing my own advocacy, which started from just answering questions in my blog, to actually communicating with patients with HIV and AIDS. Even though I am not a certified counsellor, with the help of the good hearted Dr. Ditangco and the staff of RITM-ARG who have been there, picking up my calls or texting me back whenever I have questions, I was able to do good things to help our fellow pozzies. By doing this, I learned (and still learning) a lot about the disease, it's treatment and misconceptions, even the politics behind it.
"We are in this together", is the tag line that I now use to tell the PLHIV's that I assist through phone, text or email. With these gentle words, I somehow deliver the message that he or she is not alone. Somehow, I added another line to it "I will be with you until you get the appropriate treatment." By telling the PLHIV this, I make sure that I make a commitment to him or her that I will do my very best to assist through out the course of the treatment until his or her health becomes stable. I make sure to give guidance starting from the HIV test, to getting the PhilHealth documents, to going and getting assistance in a treatment hub, to getting all labs and CD4, to having consultations with the HIV doctor, to taking the ARV's. I've heard this line too from one of the staff in RITM-ARG. She said that the staff will be there all the way to assist the new PLHIV until his status would become stable. She also mentioned that HIV treatment is a collaboration of a group of people who are working on the patients health. No one is alone in the treatment. Everybody is involved!
Indeed, "we are in this together". HIV is not a disease of one person alone. There are a lot of people who have good hearts out there, who are willing to share themselves, who are doing their own advocacies and who are silently working and reaching out to people in need of a "hug", who need love and support, who need a helping hand to guide them to the path of good health.
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Tags: HIV Manila, HIV Philippines, AIDS Manila, AIDS Philippines, HIV/AIDS Manila, HIV/AIDS Philippines