Hi Pozzie!
First of all, I would like to thank you and your blog. I salute you for helping PLHIV’s like myself.
These past few weeks, I really enjoyed reading your entries here especially those who share their stories. I so thought, people might also enjoy it if I would share mine. So here it goes.
Since college, my sexual behavior was pretty risky so it didn’t come as a surprise what happened to me last November 2011. I can still remember the setting vividly, I was taking a shower when a text message came and it read, “we had unprotected sex lat January and I advice you to get tested for HIV/AIDS because mine came out positive.”
I really didn’t absorb it, maybe I was in denial and I just erased the message fast hoping that it will also erase the thought of greater possibility that I also have HIV. But of course it didn’t. It got stuck in my mind everyday like an epoxy glue. I tried to avoid it until I couldn’t handle it anymore and a few weeks after, one early morning, I just cried to my sister and I told her. let’s go, I want to take the HIV test...” So that’s what happened. We went to the clinic and after 2 weeks... I found out... I am positive!
I started to think back where I got it: when I was in my college years? when I was in a call center for almost 6 years or after that? from those I’ve met in Planet Romeo (PR)? or from those I had sex from strangers that I met in the mall, in MRT or some other place. But eventually, I stopped it.. I just got dizzy and found it pointless. So I decided to move on.
November and December 2011 passed by thinking I was ok but as the doctor adviced me, that “depression will come like ocean waves, that sometimes there’s nothing, and somethings it is there and sometimes it will hit you like a tsunami. That’s what happened. I drowned in depression until I had the courage and with my sister bugging last February 2012 so I went to San Lazaro Hospital.
I felt we were lost like sheeps then, walking around in circles, embarrassed to ask people, confused until we saw the building with a marker, HIV/AIDS. We went in and met Dra. Arcangel.
Yes, like what your other readers say here, she came out to me as a little harsh and I even complained to my sister about the process and the doctors, but my sister just said, “brother, don’t complain anymore, everything is free here and it is best that she’s strict because you will follow her orders!” She was really right, I thought, because if my doctor is not strict, I bet I would turn things around. I told myself that it is best that I have a “warden in my jail.”
Dra. taught me a lot, I learned a lot of lessons from her, especially after learning that I needed to take ARV’s because my CD4 was below 350 (it was 275 that March 2012. There were lots of things she forbid me to do: no drinking alcohol, no smoking, no eating highly cholesterol foods and others. I was given the trail meds last June 2012 and I thought that everything will be ok then. Dra was right that I might have a reaction to the meds. I told myself that I really should have researched about what Steven Johnson is, because that’s what happened to me because of eviraine. I had flu than My body was covered with rashes. I was brought to San Lazaro Hospital from our province and when the nurses saw me in the ward, I saw from their faces how shocked they were because I really turned red.
After one week and after my skin peeled off and the frequent staying up all night by my sister and my partner in going with me to the hospital and because I bugged Dra, I got discharged. I was so happy that they charged me very little and some labs were given for free.
Then by July, I was taking efavirenz. Though I struggled in taking it because I was getting paranoid always and my state of mind was troubled, I just went on. I never missed a single dose of my ARV’s even though I was always depressed because of efavirenz, until I heard the most beautiful news early this month.
Before my second CD4 which I was made to pay P2,000 in SACCL of San Lazaro Hospital, I was tested for TB and CBC again. The first good news was my cholesterol got down to normal levels, then I was cleared for TB eventhough I was smoking for 10 years. Last week I got my CD4 and the result came out to be 401!
Yehey, I siad to myself! Pozziepinoy is right. Just believe in the medicines and with your doctor, have a healthy lifestyle and everything will be ok. I came back to H4 San Lazaro to relay the result and at last after 6 months of her poker face, I made Dra. Arcangel smile!
When she said, I did a “good job”, I almost jumped for joy in front of her. Now, I can really say, things are picking up and I am positive and not just HIV positive. :)
Sorry if this is long Pozziepinoy. I just wanted to share my full story.
God bless!
Thanks!
ThousandTwelveOneFourTwoRicThree
POZZIEPINOY’S RESPONSE
Hi ThousandTwelveOneFourTwoRicThree.
Thank you for your email. I am sorry that I posted this late as it went to my spam mail.
Thank you for sharing in detail your story. You are an inspiration to all of us, PLHIV's, with your positive outlook, with your optimism, with the meds and your doctor. I really hope that from your story, others will learn wisdom and will be encouraged to get the strength to fight to overcome all the struggles that each PLHIV is facing during the course of treatment.
Once again thank you very much for your wonderful story.
Stay healthy,
Pozziepinoy
"WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.
NO PLHIV is alone with his or her struggle with HIV!"
-Pozziepinoy-
© Copyright. All Rights Reserved by Pozziepinoy 2012
Credits:
