9 blogs and counting..

Did You Know?


Did you know that it is possible to tell your child's school that they have HIV without causing uproar? I was reading an article that describes an 'easier' way to have your child's school know about the infection and still keep the peace. With reading novels such as 'At Risk' it seems impossible to have your child remain in a normal school environment, but it can work. The article first describes that a meeting with the principal should be set up, it should be confidential, and it should be directed towards discovering the school's HIV policy (Writer, 2009). After the policy has been evaluated, another meeting needs to be set up, but this time it needs to be with the principal, school nurse, and the child's teacher (Writer, 2009). A key point to all of these meetings is to make it very clear that everything discussed is confidential and if the information is released then that would be subject to a lawsuit (Writer, 2009). The article made a very valid point that the school nurse can keep an eye on the child. She/he can look out for complications and side effects to any medications (Writer, 2009). Everyone knows that not everything can be kept under wraps, which is why the parent and the staff need to prepare themselves for other's discovering the child’s HIV status. I decided to share this article with everyone, because I felt that it shed a new light on children disclosing their HIV status with schools.

Heading Towards the Finish Line!





The weeks are winding down and summer is getting closer and closer to being a reality!! I finished my M&M simulation and I got to say it was one of the hardest assignments in this class. Of course I am just eating candy throughout the day, but it was harsh reading about the side effects of the different medications and imagining the way they could make me feel. I don’t know how I would actually deal with those physical changes. For example with taking the AZT, myopathy can occur which is when there is pain in the muscles or they can become weak (Zidovudine (Retrovir, AZT), 2009). I am a very active person, so for my muscles to be compromised that is a huge down side to taking the medications. To top that off I had to take 3TC which means that I had “nausea, vomiting, headaches and possibly hair loss,” (lamivudine, 3TC (Epivir), 2006) All four of those things are horrendous. On top of being active, I love to eat. So having nausea would probably make me not like to eat so much which ultimately stinks. This project has definitely shone some light on what a person goes through with HIV.

References


Harrison, K. (2007, April). AZT. Retrieved March 30, 2010, from 3Dchem.com: www.3dchem.com/imagesofmolecules/Zidovudine.jpg


lamivudine, 3TC (Epivir). (2006, October 26). Retrieved January 30, 2010, from Simple Facts Project: http://www.aegis.com/factshts/network/simple/lami.html


Writer, H. S. (2009, January 06). Telling Others You Are HIV Positive (Your Employer, Your Child's School). Retrieved March 30, 2010, from Healthy Place: http://www.healthyplace.com/sex/diseases/telling-others-you-are-hiv-positive-your-employer-your-childs-school/menu-id-66/page-2/


Zidovudine (Retrovir, AZT). (2009, November 18). Retrieved March 30, 2010, from The Body: http://www.thebody.com/content/art6010.html

Week 9!

Did You Know?

This week I am going to continue off of last week’s entry with parents telling their children about being HIV positive. Last week discussed the basics of parents not wanting their children to know about their status, but at the same time there is an increased self confidence when the child knows what illness they have. I located another article relating to parents telling their children, and it made a lot of valid points that I wanted to share with all of you. This article makes some valid points about telling the child about being infected with HIV. Some benefits include that by giving the child “increased knowledge and understanding about HIV, it can help facilitate the child’s adjustment (within the family, with the illness, within society, etc.), more adherence to medications, less risky behaviors, stronger family ties are built,” (Disclosure of HIV Status to Children and Adolescents:). Of course with the good comes some bad, and this article actually made it a point to show that there are some negative points to telling the child about their HIV status. With this article it discusses that 26 out of 35 children felt stress associated with being told they had HIV and the children also learn very quickly about stigmas. I understand a parent wanting to protect their child from just about anything, but at the same time, there seem to be way more positives associated with telling the child that they are HIV positive.

Week 9!

This week has been pretty hectic! With everything that goes on in normal life and classes, we started the M&M simulation this week. This requires students to swallow the M&M’s as if they were their medication with being HIV positive. This has proved to be harder than I thought it would be and the hardest part is trying to plan my meals in line with taking my medicines that need to be taken with food.

This week’s QOTW involved my grandma contracting HIV at her retirement community. This was strange question of the week, because my grandma was the one that reacted in a very old fashioned way towards HIV. Then again maybe it isn’t that strange, because if my grandma was the type of person to think that only gay people and sinners can contract HIV, then she might have been more willing to have unprotected sex with her partner in the community. In my response to this QOTW I decided to let my grandma know that I will be her support and make sure that she gets to a doctor to see about anti-retroviral. I also made it a point to set alarms on her phone and made a promise to set the same alarms on my phone and give her a friendly reminder while she gets use to her regimen.

Every single week there is something new to learn and I’m so excited for the men’s panel that is coming up sooo soon!!

References
Disclosure of HIV Status to Children and Adolescents:. (n.d.). Retrieved March 24, 2010, from wakeupune: http://www.wakeuppune.org/site/uploads/Outline_summary-Children_and_HIV.pdf

It's crunch time!!!

Did You Know?

In Washington there is a man named Anthony Whitfield. This is a man who back in 1992 tested positive for HIV after a prison rape. The reason that this man is significant is, because he knew that he had been diagnosed with HIV and continued to live a lifestyle of drugs, unprotected sex, and multiple partners. The key to all of this that incarcerated him is that he chose not to tell any of his partners that he was HIV positive. As a matter of fact his mind frame was that if the woman didn’t insist on him wearing a condom then why should he? He blamed the women and expressed that “it has been beaten into my head since fifth grade, the risks of unprotected sex. I never raped anyone. I never took any sex from a woman forcefully. It was always consensual. If you asked me to wear a condom and I didn't want to wear one, you could just say no. By having sex with me without a condom, you're assuming the risk of whatever I have,” (Doig, 2007). After reading this I just couldn’t grasp it. How could someone KNOW they were HIV positive and willingly spread it to someone else? I do agree that the partner should force protection, but Whitfield could have also taken some responsibility and put a condom on himself. There’s no set law about disclosure of HIV status to a person’s sexual partner, but I feel that there should be. I don’t think that there needs to be a law that people have to tell everyone about their status, but if you chose to have sex with someone then that is a serious matter. I understand that people will have casual sex, but changes need to be made when something as serious as an incurable infection is at stake.

Week 7

How is everyone?? I hope you all enjoyed your spring break! So this is week 2 that I am waiting to hear back about my HIV test results. I’m supposed to hear from the counselor on Thursday, and I would be lying if I said there weren’t any nerves at this point. When I first read that we weren’t allowed to do the Oraquick test, I was a little confused. I thought “why would she want us to wait? What difference does it make??” Well I know now. There is that ‘what if’ thought. Of course I practice safe sex and I don’t do drugs, but at the same time what about when I was in high school? I wasn’t as well informed about diseases. I was also young and trusted my first boyfriend, probably more than I should have. Of course 2 years after dating him I discovered that he wasn’t the guy I thought he was. With me finding out who he was as a person, it made me question who he was while we were dating. He was the only one that protection wasn’t consistent, and that was because I didn’t think he could ever do anything to me. At this point I’m happy that I had to go get tested. I brought my close friend and she also was tested and she came back negative. As we were driving home she said “thank you.” She told me that it was a relief to see that she was negative. I can’t wait to have that feeling. I hope all of you enjoy the rest of your week!!

References
Doig, W. (2007, January 22). Truth and Consequences. Retrieved March 17, 2010, from Nerve.com: http://www.nerve.com/dispatches/doig/truthandconsequences/

What a long week it has been!!

Did you know?

There are still families that feel that it is better to hide their child’s HIV status from them? As a matter of fact “data from several centers indicate that between 25% and 90% of school-age children with HIV infection/AIDS have not been told they are infected,” (AIDS, 1999). It can be taken into consideration that some of these children are too young to understand what is going on and therefore they are not being told. It can also be thought that it is too hard to handle for the parent, to actually voice that their child has HIV (AIDS, 1999). This is something extremely serious that I came across. What is this child going to do if someone else, other than their parent, discloses their status to them? I can only imagine how secluded and alone they would end up feeling. It is a shame to think that a parent would hide something so serious from their child. In this same article it states that when children do know about their status “they can have higher self esteem than children that are not aware of their status,” (AIDS, 1999). Overall, with reading this article it made me think about what I would do in this situation. If my child was infected with HIV I wouldn’t hide it from them. I would wait until my child was at least 4-5 years old. This way they can understand what is happening to them. I would want them to understand that they do not need to be ashamed and that I am a safe haven for them to turn to when they need support.

Spotlight on HIV/AIDS

This week we were asked to research 2 famous people that were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS and who died with complications to the matter. Of course this doesn’t mean they died from AIDS, but instead it could be from an opportunistic disease or an infection that their body couldn’t fight off. The two people that I chose to research were Freddie Mercury and Ryan White.

Ryan White was diagnosed with AIDS when he was 13. “He acquired the HIV infection through a blood transfusion,” (The HIV/AIDS Programs: Who Was Ryan White?). On April 8, 1990 Ryan passed away, he was 18 years old and spent his life fighting to be allowed in school (The HIV/AIDS Programs: Who Was Ryan White?). Mrs. White-Ginder, his mother was the advocate for her son and she didn’t stop when he passed away. She is still out there fighting against the stigma set up against people that are infected with HIV/AIDS.

Freddie Mercury was a member of the famous group, Queen. He wasn’t open about his status with AIDS and performed one last time on October 8, 1988 (Freddie Mercury: biography). Freddie died on November 24th, 1991. The death was apparently peaceful and in his own home due to AIDS-related bronchial pneumonia (Freddie Mercury: biography).

The weeks continue:

This week I get to attend a women’s panel for this class. I’m extremely excited to be able to listen to experiences and hopefully ask some questions! I recently completed the signs and symptoms module and one of the illnesses that I was most interested in was the HIV wasting syndrome. I was interested in it because I believe that I have seen it first hand, it happened to a close person to my family who had AIDS. She passed when I was in elementary school, but I will never forget the way she looked. It pained me to see this once large woman be so small. Now I do not know if she was actually diagnosed with the HIV wasting syndrome, but I feel that it is a decent assumption, considering the research that I found on the issue. During this past week, things have been pretty hectic and I’m gearing up to get started on the next assignment. I hope all of you enjoy the rest of your week.
References
AIDS, C. o. (1999, January 1). Disclosure of Illness Status to Children and Adolescents With HIV Infection. Retrieved March 3, 2010, from AAP Policy: http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics;103/1/164

Freddie Mercury: biography. (n.d.). Retrieved March 3, 2010, from Freddie: http://www.freddie.ru/e/bio/

The HIV/AIDS Programs: Who Was Ryan White? (n.d.). Retrieved March 3, 2010, from HRSA: http://hab.hrsa.gov/about/ryanwhite.htm