63) Living with AIDS

It was my worst nightmare coming true. My boyfriend was diagnosed HIV positive and I feared the worst for my own.

I vividly recall a night in August a year ago. It was 6:00 P.M., very cold and getting dark. I was waiting for a bus to go home, standing behind a tree for protection from the wind. I had recently lost a friend to AIDS. From whatever measure of intuition God had given me, I knew suddenly and quite certainly that I also had AIDS.

I stood behind the tree and cried. I was afraid. I was alone and I imagined having lost everything that was ever dear to me. In that place, it was very easy to visualize losing my home, my family, my friends, and my job. The possibility of dying under that tree, in the cold, utterly cut off from any human love seemed very real. I prayed through my tears. Over and over, I prayed: "Let this pass". Several months later, in December, the doctor told me what I had discovered for myself.

Now, it is nearly a year. I am still here, still working, still living, still learning how to love. There are some inconveniences. This morning, just out of curiosity, I counted the number of pills I have to take during the course of a week. It came out to 106 assorted tablets and capsules. I go to the doctor once a month and find myself reassuring him that I feel quite well. He mutters to himself and rereads the latest laboratory results which show my immune system declining to zero.

My last T-Cell count was 10. A normal count is in the range of 800-1600. I have been fighting painful sores in my mouth that makes eating difficult. But, frankly, food has always been more important to me than a little pain. It never quite goes away. Recently, the doctor discovered the herpes virus had gotten hold of my system. There have been strange fungal infections. One was on my tongue. A biopsy caused my tongue to swell and I couldn't talk for a week. Of course, there are night sweats, fevers, swollen lymph glands (no one told me they would be painful), and unbelievable fatigue.

Still I manage to do my work and the office does know of my affliction.

I called my mother over and she looks after me with a kind of love and concern that frightens me. I have less than a year of life in me as the immune level goes further down and I can sense life slowly ebbing away.

What upsets me is that colleagues fear to come 10 feet of me as though they would get infected through air. Despite the assurance that it does not spread through air or touch, I can very well understand their over cautiousness.

As for me, I try to cram everything in a hurry. I am learning guitar and that is lone companion these days. I get VCDs and DVDs of the movies I always wanted to see but couldn’t. Now, I don’t postpone such impulses.

Yesterday, I saw a small girl shivering in the cold. I emptied the attic and donated all my winter clothings to the poor immigrant family. I smile a lot more and try living in the present after chewing about the past and realizing that no good would come out it.

I go to terrace and see the sun break through and feel the nip of morning air. Life is wonderful and thank god, I am still there to catch the spectacle.

In a way, I really learnt to live only after knowing that I am dying.

(Susan De’Souza, an ABN AMRO employee and she resides in Bandra, Mumbai)