~ Chocolate Siztas ~

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Early morning is my favorite time of the day and I love the Spring! The smell and the sounds of the world coming to life, as people move about on their way. The sound of birds chirping in the trees, seeing the dew drying on the grass and flowers as the sun warms up the day. Today began as one of those days, little did I know that by the nightfall, my life would be completely turned around.

I rode the bus on my way to work, just riding and looking out the window at the scenery passing by, not really thinking about much except that I would be extremely early for work, wondering what would I do to pass the time until my shift started. As the bus passed Lenzen Avenue, a thought flashed, "Why does this street sound familiar?" Then I remembered: the clinic where I could get the results of the AIDS test I had taken while incarcerated in Elmwood County Jail is located on this street. Without thinking, I quickly reached up and pulled the cord to signal the bus driver that I wanted off at the next available stop.

I stepped off the bus remembering the day I had taken the test. The medical staff had come into the jail offering anyone who was willing to be tested, cookies and soda. I took the test not because I was concerned about my health, but because I wanted cookies and soda! Being in jail, that was a treat not available on a regular basis--no way was I gonna pass up that opportunity!

As I walked up the street towards the clinic, I recalled the questions the nurse asked me as she prepped me to be tested.

"Have you ever been tested for AIDS?"

"No," I responded.

"Are sexually active?"

"Not right now," I chuckled.

"What is your sexual preference?"

"I’m heterosexual, ONLY," I said indignantly.

"Have you ever prostituted, been sexually promiscous? How many partners have you had? Has anyone of them tested positive for AIDS? Why are you being tested?"

I answered as she drew my blood, ending with, "Because, I shoot dope and the man I’m with shoots dope and I’d like to know if I'm positive." It was at that moment that the thought that I could be positive, crossed my mind. Prior to that, I had one thought and one thought only: getting that soda and cookies!

There’s a time during active addiction when you stop and take a look at the path of destruction that you’re on--it’s called a moment of clarity. I guess I had one, because my heart skipped a beat and I broke into a cold sweat. I sat there with my arm outstretched, remembering all the times before when I’d sat in the same position, waiting for my boyfriend to inject heroin into my veins. But this time, I knew there would be no feeling of euphoria once the needle was removed, and fear of the reckless way I had been living my life quickly flashed across my mind.

I thought, what’s gonna happen to my baby if I’m positive? Who will take care of her? How will she feel having to grow up without a mother, because of the choices I made?

Tears came to my eyes as my daughter’s beautiful, smiling face came into my mind's eye. I subconsciously jerked my arm back, re-thinking my decision to be tested, but it was too late. Just that quickly, the nurse had drawn my blood and my fate was sealed. Now I would have to know. She instructed me to be still as she wiped my arm with a swab of alcohol and placed a bandage over the puncture. I thought to myself, how ironic, I never did that when I was shooting dope. Once the needle was withdrawn, I would wipe the blood with whatever I could find. Anyway, if I had AIDS, why make such a big deal out of being so clean now? I’m gonna die soon anyway.

The nurse handed me two pieces of paper, one with a number on it and the second, the name and address of a clinic. She told me that upon my release from jail, I was to go to the clinic, give them the paper with the number on it and they would give me the results from the test. She explained that everything was done on a confidential basis and emphasized the importance of my following up on the results upon my release.

I took the papers from her, blinking back tears, thanked her and reached for the promised cup of soda and three cookies. I was silently thanking God I wouldn’t have to know the results of the test while in jail and thinking to myself, there was NO WAY I was going to that clinic and to get the results! If I’m positive, ain’t nothing I can do about it, so there’s no reason for me to go and find out for sure and be all worried!

The nurse must have been reading my mind because as I reached for the soda, she touched my arm, and looking me in my eyes she said, "When you are released, please do something different with your life and please go to that clinic and get the results." I mumbled under my breath that I would, grabbed my soda and cookies and quickly walked outside before she could say anything else, thinking "Yeah right!"

As I walked through the doors of the clinic, I thought to myself, "Why are you here? You ain’t positive! You haven’t lost any weight, if anything, you’re too fat! You haven’t been sick and you don’t have any sores on your body, so there is no way you could be positive, so why are you wasting your time?" I continued to walk through the clinic, getting directions to where I needed to go, finally arriving in the area that would put this matter to rest, once and for all.

I handed the slip of paper with the number on it to the lady sitting behind a glass enclosure and took a seat in the waiting room, while she went to get someone to talk to me. As I sat waiting, for the first time since I’d taken the test, I said a prayer to God, asking Him to please let me not be positive. I looked around at the other people, they all looked so sad. I wondered if they also were there to be tested. Did they knew why I was there? A sense of dread and shame enveloped me. Suddenly the day didn’t seem so beautiful anymore. The waiting room had a few windows but it must have been located on the shaded side of the building because as I looked around the room, it seemed dark and cold, in spite of the fluorescent lighting.

I sat for what seemed like a very long time, waiting for someone to come and talk to me and just as I was about to say forget it and leave, a door opened and a nurse came into the waiting room calling my name. Our eyes met and I raised my hand identifying myself as the person she was looking for. She beckoned for me to follow her and I stood walking toward her with a look of expectation in my eyes. She motioned for me to go through the door and down a hall, escorting me into one of many exam rooms. Once we had entered the room, she invited me to sit down. I did, still praying for God to please let it not be so. She verified my number and very nonchalantly informed me that my test was positive.

I saw her mouth move and I heard the words come out of her mouth, but I couldn’t believe what I had just heard! I shook my head slowly in disbelief and asked if was she sure. She responded yes and asked me if there was anybody with me. Everything seemed so surreal, as I shook my head no, not wanting to believe what I had just heard. I doubled over in the chair, sliding down to floor crying and holding myself, saying, "No, no, no, no, no..."

I felt as if a death sentence had been handed to me and was angry at the nurse sitting across from me, fiddling with papers, acting like the news she'd just delivered wasn't life changing. I was angry that she could tell me something like that so coldly, so callously, and I cried harder as images of my life quickly flashed through my mind. There were still so many places I wanted to go, things I wanted to do, people who I loved, my daughter... OH MY GOD MY DAUGHTER!

What would happen to her? Had I somehow infected her during the times she drank behind me? Ate behind me? How would I tell her that I was dying? That I wouldn’t be there to see her grow up? That I wouldn’t be there when she had children?

The thoughts were coming faster and faster, so fast that I was beginning to hyperventilate. Finally, the nurse stopped shuffling the papers and reached to help me off the floor. I allowed her to help me back into the chair as I continued to cry, moaning and rocking back and forth. I felt so dirty and ashamed, all I could think was, my life is over, that I would be dead soon.

As the nurse was talking about my getting medical help, stories I had heard of people diagnosed with AIDS and suddenly dying ran through my mind. She continued talking but I didn’t hear anything she said, I just continued to cry, moan and rock back and forth. Finally, I heard her say something about an appointment to see a doctor. She wrote the information down on a piece of paper, handing it to me and asking me if I was going to be all right.

I looked at her through tears, amazed that she would be so stupid to ask such a dumb question! I thought to myself, I just want to get the hell out of here. I don’t even think I answered her, I just stood up and bolted out the door. She called my name, but I kept on walking, out of the exam room, down the hall and finally through the doors that led outside.

The sun was still shinning, the birds were still singing, but my day, my life was ruined! All I could think was, "I’m gonna be dead soon!" And as I walked down the street to the bus stop, I cried and wished the outcome had been different.

I was in a drug rehabilitation center, clean and sober, about to graduate, re-building the relationship with my daughter, attending 12-step meetings on a regular basis, I was in a relationship and employed, working towards putting the pieces of my life back together. WHY NOW?!

As I sat at the bus stop, my mind was in a whirlwind and I couldn’t get over the fact that I was gonna die. So many questions were going through my mind. How am I gonna tell my daughter that I have AIDS, that I would be dead soon? How do you explain to an 8 year old, that because of my wanting to get high I wouldn’t be around to teach her all the things a mother is supposed to teach a daughter? How am I gonna tell my lover? How am I gonna tell my friends? How am I gonna tell my family? Who is gonna want to be with me? How much time do I have? Will I die quickly or will I waste away? I cried and I thought, everybody is gonna know because I will get sores all over my face and nobody will want to be near me.

By the time the bus finally came I had made up my mind that, since I was dying, I was going out with a bang. I decided it didn’t make any sense trying to live my life right because I was dying, so to hell with it. I’m gonna do, see, say, eat and drink everything that I want, after all I’m dying and I DESERVE to have as much fun as I can, while I can. I convinced myself that I didn’t have very much time so I needed to hurry up before it was too late.

Not once did I question how or from whom I contracted the virus. To me it didn’t matter, after all, it wasn’t like if I could answer that question I could give it back to them, so what difference did it make? Not once did I consider that being diagnosed positive didn’t mean an automatic death sentence. I was diagnosed in the late 80s, during the time that the only thing the doctors knew about the virus was that they didn’t know very much about the virus. People were diagnosed and dying at an alarming rate, so it never crossed my mind that God had other plans for me.

There were very few people who I told I was positive and the people I did tell, I swore to secrecy. I immediately began to live my life with reckless abandon, doing drugs I had never done before. I didn’t have the guts to kill myself, besides, I didn’t want my daughter to live knowing that her Mom didn’t love her enough to stay around to raise her. But I lived my life caring very little about anything or anyone, least of all about myself. There were many, many days, I contemplated just ending my life, but God used my love for my only child to keep me from making such a fatal decision.

During my path of self-destruction I overdosed many times, so much so that one time I woke up in the emergency room and overheard a conversation between two doctors discussing the last time I had been there. One doctor said it had been a week, the other doctor insisted it had been two weeks. I raised up on the gurney and chirped in, "It was last week." There was another incident when a paramedic who was reviving me asked if I was trying to commit suicide. I indignantly replied, "Hell no!"

In spite of being convinced that my life would soon be over, God kept His loving arms of protection around me, always bringing me back from the edge of death. Sometimes He used people, sometimes He used my going to jail, which definitely put a halt to my using!

The beginning of the end of my trying to rush to my demise, and the beginning of my accepting that I was not going to die until God was ready, came during another incident when I had overdosed and the paramedics were bringing me back. I felt as if I was in a pool of water and as I came closer to consciousness, I was floating to the surface of the water. I was so tired of living my life worrying about dying, I physically tried to push myself back down in the water so I could drown. The Lord quietly said to me, "I have a purpose for you," and brought me totally awake.

I didn’t stop using and the second part came while locked up in jail for the umpteenth time. I asked God, "Why is it that every time I come to jail, I get so much time, but other people who come for worse crimes than what I’ve done, seem to get less time?" God answered, "Because the only time I get your attention is when you’re in places like this." The third and final motivator for me was I had overdosed yet again and my daughter was there. This was not the first time she had been around when I overdosed but this time when I came to and asked her if she was all right, as they wheeled me out the house to the emergency room, she answered me honestly, "No I am not!" and commenced to read me the riot act of how what I was doing was affecting her.

God used my only child to show me that I wasn’t going to die soon. Through all the things I had been through, this little girl had never wavered in her love for her Mom, so this was a sobering blow for me. When I was weak, she was strong, never giving up that one day I would pull my life together and be the Mom she deserved. It was her strength and love that I borrowed when the virus did show up and begin to affect my health. For many years it didn’t affect me in the way that I had imagined it would. I didn’t lose weight, I didn’t get sick, I didn’t get sores on my body and the people who knew didn’t stop loving me.

Through God’s grace I finally got clean and sober and it was when I had 10 years clean that the virus showed up in full effect. My T-cells dropped to a dangerous 16 and the viral load count in my body was 750,000. Still, God kept His arms around me sending a loving friend who has since passed from the disease. He walked me through the decision to begin taking medications.

With the support of a wonderful medical team, a large group of loving, supportive and accepting friends and family members, the virus has stabilized, allowing me to continue to live a full and productive life. I’m even engaged to be married! And yes, my fiancée does know that I’m positive.

Whenever I think back to the day I was diagnosed, I look at how far God has brought me and I thank Him for keeping and loving me when I couldn’t love myself. I would have missed out on so much had He not. Modern medicine has come a long way and the world we live in has become a lot more accepting of those of us who have contracted this virus, but the most important thing is, we’ve become more accepting of ourselves.

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