This is my story of how I got HIV infected, I hope young people, now joining University will pick a lesson.
I was 22 years of age and everything was going super for me. I had just done my last paper at the University, I was starting work the following week.
I had a crazy boyfriend around me and in a few months, he would marry me and then in a few months I would join him in America. Life was fun and life was good. I thanked God for being kind to me.
My fiance was a childhood friend. He however had gone to study in America for three years. Our relationship had grown quickly because we already knew each other.
we had not been intimate with each other but now since Kwanjula was approaching we wanted to check out our HIV status. On my part, I saw it as a formality and I knew there was nothing to worry about. Holding hands we walked to a clinic like half a kilometer away. The clinic was manned by a friend of mine. I wanted to do the test at his clinic.
This guy took my blood sample and when he returned the results, he could not look me in the eye. He said do you want me to openly share the results? He said one of you is sick.
I pointed at my boyfriend straight away and said, it must be you. My friend shook his head as he handed us the results. He said it was me who was HIV positive. There must be a mistake is what I could say at that time. I cannot be positive. We asked him to do the test again and to use the most accurate of all the tests. The results were the same, I was positive and he was negative.
I spent the whole weekend running from one clinic to another. I think I did a million tests, and they were also saying the same thing. I was HIV positive. In just a week I lost three kilos.
My boyfriend stayed around and tried to be good but slowly he started fading away. I could not blame him. He eventually returned to America and as for wedding preparations,I told my family the wedding was off. My fiance was postponing it for 8 months because he had a few things to sort out.
When reality hit home, I was completely lost. I did not know where to turn to, for support. My friends were all of the same age and these are not the kind of people you tell that you are HIV positive.
Where and how did I get the dreaded HIV virus? My fate started when I met this guy at a pool party with friends in Ntinda and he bought us free drinks. Those days pool parties were popular and campus girls loved attending them.
We later joined him to say hello and thanks to this kind man, he bought us drinks. He was 34, handsome, smart, and very polished. He was a gentleman in looks and stature. After the party, he dropped us back at the hostel and all my friends insisted that I give him my contact because they had liked him and, he had picked interest in me.
We exchanged contacts because I had liked him too. From there we started meeting on different occasions and I remember one night after clubbing he asked me to his house.
I accepted his invitation because I trusted him, besides we had been dating for 7 months. He had paid a number of my university bills and he had also done a lot of shopping for me on the weekends. We had live sex that night and, he promised me we will go for HIV blood checkups in the morning.
To my surprise, he was nowhere to be seen in the morning, he had left so early. I never realized he was dodging going for a blood test. I knew very little about his family, the only thing I remember him sharing with me was a brief story about his ex-wife who had left for South Africa and he did not tell me the exact reason why they broke up.
A few days later he started playing busy until we finally lost contact. I decided to move on with my life little did I know it was the beginning of nightmares, I had picked HIV.
I lost hope, blamed myself, and lost weight from 57kgs to 52kgs within 3 days. I was afraid of disclosure because I thought people will judge me. I never told my parents about it up to now because my mum is hypersensitive, am still figuring out the best way of telling her. One thing I promised myself was never to spread the virus the way I got it because I was already a victim. I gave relationships a break though am a human too regardless of my status.
Later I started working and my supervisor picked interest in me, I disclosed my status to him and he seemed okay with it. He could escort me to the hospital, give me advice about HIV, he really supported me because he was a pharmacist he had knowledge about HIV. Our relationship did not last because we got some misunderstandings like any other couple and we decided to quit.
After some time I went to a friend’s office for counseling, he was an old friend. We attended the same high school so we knew each other for quite a long time. He never judged me when I told him about my status. We got so close and started dating though he had fear because he was negative.
We broke up this relationship three times because he could not bring himself to accept me as an HIV positive wife. He feared catching HIV. He realized that counseling an HIV postive friend and marrying an HIV positive person were two different things. In the meantime, I started visiting blogs on the internet hopefully trying to find someone who would accept me there. After breaking up three times with this guy on grounds of my HIV status, I was ready to get someone of my status and that is what I was looking for. I was disappointed by dating sites and blogs because the people I met there were not genuine and they were only about money.
I was there in my house one day and I heard a knock on the door, it was this guy again, he was back and he said he was now ready to go all the way with the relationship. I really liked him but I knew he was facing his own challenges with me being HIV positive and it was important that he resolves them.
We started going to different phycologists to guide us on how to live as a discordant couple. In 2018 we got married and had our first child. Both my baby and the father were negative and this made my husband more strong and confident.
As I speak we have our second baby. We are now planning to tell my mum and mother-in-law because she owns a healthy facility, she has been wondering why I never go there for antenatal. My only prayer is she accepts the decision her son made.
My strength has been ART (antiretroviral therapy), am living positively, undetectable and my husband and two children are all negative. My message to people out there is never to stigmatize those with HIV/AIDS, this makes one lose hope, others give up on medication and lose lives. As for young girls, always know the status of the person you’re dating, never rush into sex due to excitement, and for marrieds keep testing for HIV, its is better you find out earlier and start medication.
