Hiv Case Study

From the time I was five years old, I can remember trusting in the finished work of Christ's shed blood on the Cross and His Resurrection over sin and death. I had a sense a presence and knew I was never alone since early childhood. I trusted in that still small voice of the Holy Spirit to guide me. Sometimes I just chose to ignore it.

One of those instances where I chose to debate that voice was in April of 1983, around Easter. I was 19 years old. I was with my "friend", Roy, staying with him for the weekend. Roy considered himself bisexual. We would often go out dancing to alternative clubs. I had a history of sexual abuse, abandonment and rejection. Like many children, I sexually experimented with other girls as a young girl, but my desire to be with females grew stronger. I was sexually attracted to men but also found I was becoming more emotionally and sexually drawn to women. Perhaps it was my emotional closeness I had for Roy that made me consider having sex with him that day. I would never have done that in any other circumstance. I was also going through great inner conflict at the time. Whatever the reasons, we decided to have sex that weekend. I did it mostly out of "Love".

As I lay there about to let him penetrate, an inner voice said, "Don't sleep with him! He is diseased." I thought silently, debating with this voice, "What disease could he have? If it's gonorrhoea or something, there is a cure." "No, its not that!" The Holy Spirit was very firm in warning me in my ignorance. Still, in my stubbornness and foolishness, I argued, "I loved him and Love conquered all. And you love me. Its too late for me to tell him No. If I get it, you will heal me!"

As soon as we finished, I ran to the bathroom to douche with water. I always did that after I had sex with my ex-fiancÐ"© but I felt a warning not to do that this time. Out of habit, I did it anyway.

That summer, I moved to Key West, FL. I saw my first case of someone who had AIDS, although I had never heard of it. A girl I was briefly dating, Tanya, a bisexual woman, introduced me to him because she often took him food. He was in his final stages and weighed under 100lbs. II pondered if this was the disease the Holy Spirit had tried to warn me about. I was not worried. I still believed that whatever it was, I would be fine. I was also sexually involved with a Frenchman named Pierre. He had been staying at Calvin Klein's Key West home with some other men. Pierre referred to them as Calvin's boys. Although Pierre denied being bisexual, I didn't believe him. In fact, at that time in my life, I was convince that just about anyone could be persuaded to have a gay encounter, by the right person. Therefore, I assumed that he too was bisexual or had at least experimented. He also became my summer love that year, moving into a compound cottage with me. I later ran into Tanya and she seemed to have succumbed to the new crack cocaine that had hit the streets. I don't know what happened to her but she too looked like she was coming down with the same disease that other man had. I moved back to Pittsburgh to attend my first year of college and Pierre moved onto a yacht in Miami. But, before I started college, I went on another vacation with Roy and out friend, Todd. We were all promiscuous in our own ways and Roy managed to seduce a few more young men into experimenting sexually. Sometimes I was the bait that lured them in to his lair.

After I started school, I began to look at the life I was living. I tried to pull away from being promiscuous and instead became intimately involved with one person. She was my true love and the third woman I had been with as an adult. We remained turbulently together for almost two years. Roy had also settled down with one man. During this time, I began to get sick. I was sick for months but my family doctors just kept giving me antibiotics that were not working to clear up my cough. I had diarrhoea for over a month. The night sweats had me changing at least twice before I woke up to begin my day. I saw an advertisement on the news for Pitt Men's Study wanting bisexual and gay men to come and get tested for a new disease. They described all they symptoms. I watched for 2 months as I laboured through my midterms and finals. My mother told me I needed to call them. My mother was a woman of faith and my strong support and friend. She always told me that I could not please God if I did not trust Him. She would often say, "Without faith it is impossible to please God and Whatever is not done in faith is sin." She got those words from the red letters in the Bible. That was what Jesus said. I grabbed onto those words and would hold them in my heart. I finally called them before I started the summer term. I had to beg them to let me test since I was a woman and the study was for men. I was persistent and after three attempts, they let me come in under a number. Because of the shame, I kept it a secret from everyone else. When I got the results back, they were positive for HIV. I was told that my T-cell count and my TR4 count was extremely low and just above 200. I think they said 280. I was told AIDS was considered when it was below 200. They said it could be a false positive so they would need to run another test to be sure. It too was positive. That was June 6, 1985.

As they were telling me I was sick and that, "Having children someday would not be a wise thing to do because they would become infected and there was no cure and nothing doctors or man could do, I zoned out. The room was spinning and I had to go elsewhere in my mind. They no longer could help me. They had no answers. I realized where my help comes from. My help comes from the Lord, I thought. Only God can help me now. I thought of the scripture I had read a few times in the past, "Put no trust in man. Trust not in princes. Trust in the Lord." Soon my dizziness from the news went away and I returned again in my mind to hear them still talking to me about this disease. "Thank you! Are we through now? Yes, I will be fine." I said.

I just wanted to run to God and needed to get away from them to get a moment with Him, alone.

When I finally got downstairs and onto the street my body was walking but my mind was searching for another place. I prayed as I walked up and down 5th Ave. I thought of what I would do it I died. I didn't want my life to be a total waste. I thought once more I would say, "The Sinner's Prayer" to ensure that I was Christ's and Christ was mine. It would be alright if I died. I would be with the Lord. I thought of the scripture, "They overcame him by the blood of the lamb, the word of their testimony and loving not their lives, even unto death." I