Profile: Standing Strong
20 years after HIV pulled her life off-course, Kath Webster feels more anchored than ever before.
I never went for an HIV test. All I wanted that day back in 1995 was to donate blood to the Red Cross. Instead, a week later I received the diagnosis from my doctor. I was shocked: “HIV? What are you talking about? I’m a lesbian! Lesbians don’t get HIV!!” Well, as I learned, some of us do.
At first, I was completely baffled as I had been in a monogamous relationship for seven years (my partner tested negative shortly afterwards). I racked my brain to try to make sense of it: Was it that blood product I had received in Lesotho, Africa, in the 1980s? Or the one time I had sex with a man while there? Ultimately, how I got it doesn’t matter; it was what it was and I had to accept it.
Today, at age 50, after nearly two decades of life with HIV, I feel strong, optimistic and more anchored than perhaps ever before. But it hasn’t always been this way. I’ve worked hard to get where I am since that day when HIV first pulled my life off-course, sending me downstream into unknown waters.