Week 3..and the adventure continues!

Did you know?

There is a man in Canada being tried for manslaughter because he didn’t tell his many sexual partners that he was HIV positive (Mark Cichocki, 2009). With all of this occurring 2 of the women that he infected have died from AIDS complications and, because of these issues the Royal Canadian Mounted Police felt the need to post a picture and name of the man to the public. RCMP feels that it is a public safety issue (Mark Cichocki, 2009). The debate that is going on is whether or not it was okay for the police to disclose who the man is. This is something that is HUGE! What is going to happen for future cases like this? Are there exceptions to confidentiality? With reading this article it raised a lot of questions for me. I feel that there shouldn’t be exceptions to confidentiality. These police disclosed information before the case was closed and a verdict was reached. I totally understand that there are other people involved and they need to be protected, but shouldn’t other people be held responsible? Don’t they need to be the ones that protect themselves and demand protection during intercourse? I think they should. There a bunch of pros and cons to disclosing this man’s HIV status, but until he was found guilty of these charges, I don’t believe an exception should have been made to confidentiality.

Week 3 :)

So it is week 3 of my adventure of my HIV class at UCF and I’m still discovering new things every day. Just 10 minutes ago I finished an assignment that required me to think of what I would do in the event that I needed a blood transfusion with possible HIV positive blood. This situation required that I be on a vacation and that nearest United States blood was 20 hours away and my life depended on getting this blood so I could have surgery due to internal injuries from a dramatic fall. After reading the assignment my mind became a whirlwind of thoughts. Do I die from blood loss and complications or do I chance it and live another day? Ultimately I chose to have the transfusion and possibly contract HIV. My main reason for deciding to have the transfusion was so that I could see my family again and that the medicine in the United States is strong enough to where I could have a chance at a somewhat decent life with HIV.

At this stage in the class I am feeling motivated to make a difference with HIV. I feel like I should be volunteering my time with issues dealing with HIV. I’m going to try and look further into this, if anyone has any ideas I would love to hear about them!!

Today I will start reading At Risk, a book for this course regarding a younger girl that has HIV. I am extremely excited to read this book and I think that it will further motivate me on sharing knowledge and volunteering for awareness with HIV. I’m hoping that this motivation doesn’t fall away, I like it and I’m excited to see where it will take me. :)

Works Cited

Mark Cichocki, R. (2009, May 1). Public Disclosure of HIV Status: Public Safety or Breach of Confidentiality? Retrieved Feburary 10, 2010, from About.com: http://aids.about.com/od/legalissues/i/disclosure.htm

Totem, T. (2008, June 16). benettontalk. Retrieved Feburary 10, 2010, from http://www.benettontalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/know-your-hiv-status_jonrawlinson.jpg

Week number 2!!!

Did You Know?

Currently there are many issues with whether a person should have to disclose their HIV status. One area that drew some attention from me was the issue of roommates disclosing their HIV status with each other. I came across an article on the New York Times website and it discussed how the author doesn’t feel that a person should need to disclose their HIV status with a roommate. One of the issues that he was mentioning was an HIV positive roommate should take extra precaution with their roommates and that would prevent mishaps. With this subject I believe that there should be different circumstances that can contribute to whether a person should disclose their status. For example me and my roommate are extremely close and share a bathroom, which means that we could accidentally use a razor or a toothbrush. Because we have close contact I would expect her to tell me something as serious as their HIV status. Now if roommates simply live together and there is no way of having bodily fluids swapped, then there shouldn’t be a need for them to disclose their status to each other. As you all can see disclosing a person’s status can be difficult and should be taken seriously.

HIV week 2!
This week I started on module 1. With this module I dug deeper into what pandemic, epidemic, and endemic really mean. Before I started I had a general idea about these terms, but I couldn’t differentiate between them. I used the Merriam-Webster online dictionary to help me define the terms. After researching the terms it became clear how they were different from each other. It also allowed me to understand that HIV is a pandemic, because it affects a large amount of people around the world and not just in one specific area. I was also instructed to find the prevalence of HIV in different countries and states. This opened my eyes. How could one virus affect so many people? And on top of that how can people still leave themselves vulnerable to this virus? Don’t they hear about it, see it, or care about it? Of course this doesn’t mean that everyone was just ignorant and contracted HIV, I mean that HIV is so huge, how can anyone not have every guard they can have up? Since I have started this module it has made me aware just how prevalent this issue is in our world. We need to inform anyone and everyone about this virus and how they can protect themselves and others.

In addition to blogging about this week’s events, I was supposed to look at AIDS organizations outside of the United States. I chose to look into an organization named AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific or ASAP. This is a non governmental body of HIV and AIDS organizations. The main focus is to reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS throughout Asia and the Pacific. They want people to talk about the issues with HIV/AIDS and promote awareness. ASAP also works with regional sectors in Asia and the Pacific to help advocacy efforts. Even though they are independent from the government, they will work along side them to help the cause.

http://www.aidssocietyap.org/

HIV! It needs to be talked about!

DID YOU KNOW?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXcBUROIilw

HIV is something that seems to be kept hush hush, which in my opinion is horrible. Of course there is debate about how open people need to be about subjects like their status or even discussing prevention with children. This issue is worldwide and is extremely prevalent in Africa. While researching issues like these I came across an article on the NY times website. This article mentions that in Kenya there are plans to test over four million people for HIV. Normally testing would be appreciated, but with this issue, advocates fear for the children that are going to be tested. There are about 150,000 children that are infected in Kenya. The advocate groups fear for the children that test positive for the virus. Reason being that the children that do test positive are normally treated horribly. For example they can be physically ill treated or even shunned out of the house. Advocates feel that if the at home testing is going be done, because most people do not want to go to the clinic, then psychologists will need to also stand close when the results are given.


I feel that this is definitely a concern, not just in Kenya, but worldwide. HIV positive patients are looked at differently. There is no way around that fact. Now this does NOT mean that they are always looked at negatively, but in some cases they are. When a person takes that negativity to an extreme, unnecessary level it can get out of control. These issues need to be expressed so that awareness can be all over and HIV positive patients aren't treated with the negativity that they do not deserve.





Week 1 With My HIV Class





This week was most definitely a learning experience. We have been assigned a few simulations. One was a Thrush simulation that I completed a few days ago that opened my eyes wider than I could have imagined. Thrush is an infection of a yeast called Candida in a person's mouth. It creates white, milky patches inside the mouth and on the tongue. The simulation required me to put two cotton balls on either side of my mouth. After that I ate a few crackers and drinking water. With eating the crackers they seemed to blend in with the cotton balls and it wasn't long until I couldn't differentiate between what was cotton or cracker. I went ahead and drank some water to see if it would help but it just furthered the mushy mess that I put in my mouth. It really made it hard to eat and I can only imagine how someone can live with that issue throughout their HIV positive life.





With taking this course I am hoping to increase my understanding with HIV. I want to know more about how HIV infected people feel and what they go through. I am already seeing changes in myself. Mainly I am more conscientious about what I say to people I know and people I don't know. Prevention steps are more obvious to me and the fact that HIV is something that is not going anywhere is becoming more realistic. HIV and AIDS are things that can just be swept under the bed and forgotten about. They need to be discussed and brought to more people's attention. I'm extremely excited about this class guiding and teaching me through this diabolic issue.




References:

Siyclone. (2008, June 20). Kelly Rowland visits Kenya and raises HIV awareness. Video file retreived from: http://www.youtube.come/watch?v=VXcBUROIilw


McNeil, D. 2009, December 28. Group Worries About Rights of Children as Kenya Plans In-Home Tests for HIV. Retreived January 27, 2010. From New York Times website: http://www.newyorktimes.com/2009/12/29/health/research/29glob.html?_r=18$scp=4&sq=hiv&st=cse