Online Discussion Forum
March 12, 2007
Daily Digest #6
Dear forum members:
Today's daily digest contains the personal story of Kimberly who found out that she was HIV positive in 1990. Kimberly has shared with us some of her experiences, including dealing with her diagnosis, disclosing her status, and her interaction with providers. You can ask Kimberly questions by replying to this email.
Thank you for sharing your story Kimberly!
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Kimberly’s Story
I am 41 years old. I live in Towson, MD, USA. I was infected at 19 years old by my boyfriend from college (heterosexual sex) and I have been living with this for 22 years. In 1990, I gave blood and got a letter back from the American Red Cross, stating that they cannot accept my blood for donation. That was when I found out I was HIV positive.
When I found out that I was positive, I was dating a 24 year old man and I had to tell him (I wanted him to know). We had not done anything to put him at risk but when I told him, he got up and screamed “holy …., you have AIDS,” and he ran out of my house. He came back an hour and half later, and apologized. We dated for another year and a half.
It’s been a long journey since 1990 and a lot has happened. I kept my HIV status a secret at first; my family (my father and stepmother) wanted me to keep it a secret because my brother and sister were still in middle school and high school. We did not want the community to find out. My father and I even begged my first provider not to write anything about my HIV status in my medical chart because we were afraid that other people would find out.
In 1992, I decided that I could no longer keep it a secret and started telling people here and there. First, I told people at work. I was working in management at an athletic club in Baltimore and I educated the staff and that went pretty well. I also started telling girlfriends little by little. I got asked to speak with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the National Basketball Association to tell the players and their wives about HIV. I did that work for a while and liked it very much, traveling around the country.
I started speaking at a lot more places (word of mouth referrals) –camps in Canada, Steven Kauffman Outreach Project, lots of Schools and Universities all over Maryland. Around that time, I crashed and burned – I was drinking socially, and then alcohol led me to “cocaine” and I became addicted and very quickly quit my job and stopped speaking, and became a hopeless, homeless drug addict (for a total of about 5 years).
In 1999, after going through many rehabs and detox sites, wards and jail, I finally stopped drinking and drugging on Nov 17, 1999. At that point, I was almost physically, mentally and spiritually dead and I worked really hard in recovery to do the next right thing. I got back on medication, and got on disability. I was also diagnosed with “post traumatic stress disorder”. I’ve worked hard on recovery since then. A lot has happened but I have built my life again and got off disability last year.
In 2002, my medicine stopped working and that is when they diagnosed me with AIDS. Since then, I have found a new drug “cocktail”. I have been getting better physically, mentally and spiritually. I started working, got off disability, and now I work full-time in case management in a large group. A big chunk of my case load is HIV positive clients, mostly those who have been incarcerated and are coming back into the healthcare system.
The office of my first provider was not very easy to work with. I called the office a lot with questions, often to ask about my test results, and the staff didn’t handle it well. I think they didn’t have a very nice bedside manner. I switched providers in 1993 or 1994 and have been with my current provider since then. I work well with my current provider and he has stuck by me when times have been rough.