I went to my clinic today to have my 4 monthly blood tests etc and sadly found that a woman I know, Robbie, has died and of AIDs at 52 . She was not a close friend but was one of the first HIV+ women I met locally here after I was diagnosed, and the first woman open about her status I ever met and she used to come to my women’s group when I ran it for 3 years. I actually was surprised she lasted so long. Basically she would not take meds!! She was not a denialist exactly , she knew what she had and a lot about it and had lived with it for over 20 years. But after taking meds for about 2 years she stopped. When she came to the women’s group we persuaded her to try again, she only took them for a year and refused ever to take them again, that was about 2 years ago. She took some kind of Chinese herbal stuff, mixed especially for her by a Chinese herbalist and swore it was working. It plainly was not. The last time I saw her was at the middle of this summer, she was so thin, about 32kg. We did a yoga class together for a while and had to keep stopping because she got faint. I looked at her and knew she was dying, I just knew, she was yellow, thin, skin and bones, short of breath, but it was not that, I could feel death. But she still kept insisting she was healthy, healthier than me - Im over weight and she saw her slimness as a sign of fitness. Insisted also the stuff she was taking was working well. I know it was her choice and no one could make her take the meds. But she is the 4th person I have known, in person - not online, I have known more die I only knew online - since I was HIV+ who died simply because they either did not take meds at all or took them infrequently. And I had a friend die when there were no meds like we have now and my husband nearly died before he was diagnosed and went on meds. Do not ever doubt what will happen if you do not take your meds and keep taking the ARVs.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 18:24:22 +0000
Trending Topics
© 2015