ODC News Letter
January 2010 News Letter -
A Closer Look At David Roesler!
Old News Letters...
Jaime
Changing Colors
October, 1996. It's fall again; the season of changing colors. A year ago today I was diagnosed with AIDS. It's been the longest and shortest year of my life. I'm amazed I've made it this far, yet I wonder where the time went. My life now is full of irony.
In October of 1995, I was a newlywed, pregnant with my first child. My husband and I had only been married since May and we hadn't planned on my getting pregnant so soon, but we were thrilled. I remember feeling overwhelmed and overjoyed all at once. It was truly the best time of my life.
Three weeks after I found out I was pregnant, my doctor called and asked to see me immediately. When I got to his office, every person in the room looked up at me as I walked in. I saw pity in every pair of eyes that stared at me, and right then, I knew. I could feel my spirit start to leave my body and view what was happening to me in the third person, like I really wasn't me. I felt like I was watching myself with someone else's eyes, someone else's soul. It was surreal, like something out of "The Twilight Zone."
The doctor took me to a private room. When I worked in a hospital, we called them "cry rooms", because it's where they took families to give them really bad news. He just looked at me for a long time, swallowing over and over every time he tried to speak. "This is some major, heavy duty shit here, girl," I thought to the person who used to be me. Finally, he spoke, and when he did, he kept his eyes on his chart like he had written down what he was about to say. "All your tests were completely normal," he said, "except for one." "Except for one." Those words have rung in my head a million times since that day. A million, I swear to God. He opened his mouth to speak again, but I wasn't about to let him say anything else. I knew what was coming and I didn't want to hear it. I was furious at him, more pissed off than I've ever been at anyone in my entire life. I screamed at him, called him an idiot, among other things. I told him that there had to be a mistake, that he didn't know what he was talking about. I began screaming out all of my "virtues", all of the things that I had thought would protect me from AIDS: no IV drugs, monogamous sex, good diet, daily exercise, a healthy lifestyle. I was by no means a saint, but I was more health conscious than 75% of the people I knew. "I've only slept with two guys in the last nine years," I told him, "nice guys." "Nice people get AIDS, too," he said, "you did."
In that moment, I realized that I was the idiot, not the doctor, and that I was pissed off at myself, not him. The joke was on me, big time, and this was the ultimate punch line, the cruelest of ironies. My one bad choice to have unprotected sex was wiping out all the other good choices I had made throughout my life. I was blaming the messenger for the message when I had no one to blame but myself. I stopped yelling. There was nothing left to say.
My sister came then, my lifelong best friend. The one who knew me like no one else and loved me anyway. Through childhood, through all the ups and downs of adulthood, she had been there. Younger than me, but older somehow. The one who always got it right first. The one I could always lean on and never bullshit. I didn't have to say anything when she came through the door; she looked at me and she knew. I thought of the telephone conversation we'd had earlier. "Anything but AIDS we can handle," she had said, "and we both know you don't have AIDS." I didn't have the heart or the courage to tell her she was wrong. I just sat and watched the life drain from her face, hating myself for what I was putting her through. It was the first time I could ever remember the two of us being speechless.When we left, no one looked at me. I could feel the person I was, the woman I had spent 32 years becoming, already leaving me. In a heartbeat, she was a memory. I had walked in there a happy, healthy, pregnant, young woman. Or so I had thought. I was walking out a woman infected with the most feared killer disease of our time. Maybe of any time. I'd gone from enviable to pitiful in the blink of an eye. Life as I knew it, the life I'd worked hard to build, ceased to exist at that moment. I wondered if the woman I was would too. Then I remembered that I had checked my spirit at the door on the way in. I didn't have the strength to pick it up on the way back out.
Three days later, my husband's HIV test came back positive as well. I could feel all of our dreams, old and brand new, getting sucked right out of us as we sat there. Dreams for the child already growing inside of me, for a family together, for a long future growing old with someone I truly loved. This wasn't exactly the trip I'd been anticipating for so long. I didn't look at my husband, I couldn't. He'd been smiling non-stop since we'd found out I was pregnant, and I knew he wasn't smiling now. I just sat there, regretting my past and dreading my future all at once. That's when I turned my mind off, shut out all the shit that was running through my head. I started to leave myself again, looking down at the woman who was once me and the tragic figure she had nearly instantly become. I detached myself from her and from all that was happening to her like she was someone else and not me. And I was getting really good at it already.
I was damn sure we'd never make it through that night. We sat on the living room floor in our coats all night, but there wasn't exactly a whole lot of living going on. I thought of the miracle of new life and the horror of incurable disease growing inside of me all at once and wondered how it could possibly be so. We were still sitting on the floor when the sun came up the next morning (I remember thinking it had some nerve). That's when I realized that the day was behind us and we had made it through. I knew then that we could make it through anything. It was my first shred of hope.
Now it's October, 1996. Part of me already can't remember what it's like to live without HIV, the other part of me is still wondering where the hell the time went. The nights are endless, but the months fly by. There's that irony thing again.
Today though, looking back, I have far more gratitude than regret. I am grateful for my husband, who stood beside me and loved me at a time when I was at my most unlovable. I'm proud of the way we tried hard to honor the commitment we made to each other, not just as husband and wife, but as fellow human beings. It would have been easy to "go there", but we didn't. Ever. Even when we probably should have. I'm grateful for the love and respect we had for each other at a time when we both needed it the most. We did the best we knew how with what we had been given, which was way too much, and with what we had left, which in the end, wasn't nearly enough. God, life really is ironic.
Still, I'm grateful for so many things. I'm grateful for my family, who has shown me, time and again, that families stick together and see each other through, good times and bad. I'm grateful for their hugs when things are bad and their sense of humor when they're worse. I'm grateful for the friends I have who still treat me like the same person that I've always been, even on the many days when I'm not that person. I'm thankful for the doctors and everyone else who work so hard to make sure that I stay healthy, both mentally and physically; it's not an easy job for any of us. I am grateful for the people I have met who are going through the same things that I am; for the stories they have shared and the lessons they have taught me. Because of them, I have learned to be more patient and more forgiving, more humble and more accepting. Far more compassionate and far more aware. And far more frustrated by apathy. And above and beyond all else, I am grateful for my faith in God and my belief that He knows why this has happened to me and what I'm supposed to learn from it, even if I sometimes have absolutely no clue.
I have learned that not all of Life's questions have answers and that sometimes the best thing to do is to just let go, even if it's the hardest thing. I have learned that I am a lot stronger and a lot braver than I ever gave myself credit for and to give myself a break and a pat on the back once in awhile. I have learned that a smile and a sense of humor go a long way; even, or maybe especially, if that sense of humor is warped.
And while I would do damn near anything to be rid of this disease, slowly but surely I am learning that it doesn't have to consume my Life. It's the times that I feel the most lost that I'm the most hopeful there's a way out. The saddest times that I'm the most thankful for how much I still have. Weird how some things work. Life is full of lessons and irony, like I said.
It is now October, 2005. I have been living with HIV for 10 years and it has been a more humbling and yet more empowering experience than I ever could have imagined. I have spent much of the past 10 years feeling blessed for what I thought could only be a curse-if not for the infection itself, then for the lessons it continues to teach me. I have learned that God truly rewards patience and faith in ways far richer than I ever realized before. I have learned that I can choose to be changed and shaped in ways good or bad, and that those decisions are solely up to me.
I have learned that I am even stronger and more thankful than I was 10 years ago and 10 years before that. And I can only hope that my strength and gratitude will continue to grow over the next 10 years.Life is still full of lessons and irony. I'm guessing (and hoping) that it always will be.
I may have HIV, but so far, it doesn't have me.
