By Kevin Griffin, Vancouver Sun
January 1st, 2015
Within a span of four years, Rhonda went from nearly dying from AIDS to giving birth to a healthy baby girl.
Her story illustrates the challenges of AIDS in 2014. Science has made incredible advances in treatment and prevention but the social stigma associated with the disease remains almost as strong as always.
Rhonda collapsed in 2010. She was taken to hospital in a wheelchair, but fell into a coma within hours. When she awoke three weeks later, she was told she had AIDS.
She’d had no idea she was HIV positive.
“I cried for months,” she said. “I was in a fetal position, didn’t talk to anyone, didn’t tell my family.”
“I thought: ‘I have AIDS. I want to die. I’m sick. I’m dirty. I’m gross. I don’t want anybody touching me.’ That’s how I felt for a long time.”
She was told she might have been HIV-positive for as long as a decade. Given her background, she can only imagine she was infected by a sexual partner.
HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus, which weakens a person’s immune system and makes the person susceptible to other infections. Once HIV has weakened the immune system and the person has a life-threatening illness or illnesses, that person has developed AIDS.
Rhonda wanted to talk about the great care she received at the Oak Tree Clinic at BC Women’s Hospital but didn’t want to use her real name or have a photograph taken because of the stigma still associated with HIV.