AIDS at 30: Being HIV-positive and living a positive life

[Shana A]

AIDS at 30: Being HIV-positive and living a positive life

Posted on 30 Jun 2011 at 6:04pm

Shannon Sims knows all about the circumstances that cause many trans women to contract HIV, because she's lived through it

RENEE BAKER | Contributing Writer

http://www.dallasvoice.com/aids-30-hiv-positive-living-positive-life-1081764.html

Life as a prostitute, a drug dealer, a homeless woman, a transgender woman, an HIV-positive woman, a Texas prisoner and guard, a showgirl and a college student brings her a mix of experiences few could match.

But at 31 years of age, despite her difficult road so far, Sims has hope. She says she has never given up on God and that her bad karma is behind her now.

[cynthialee]

Being HIV+ myself I personaly find all these fluff pieces that diminish the impact of HIV to be a disservice.

Being HIV+ is rough. The meds are hell. For the first three months of being on the meds I was married to my couch and a barf bucket. The meds also cause periphiral nueropathy and many people will never completely adjust to the meds and will always have malaise and nausea. Personaly I take medications to deal with the side effects of medications.
When you are HIV+ your pool of lovers drys up. Completely. The social stigma alone is enough for many to commit suicide.
I go to the doctor every three months for wellness checkups. I have for the last 6 years and will for the rest of my life. If I move to anouther city I will need to do allot of prep work, getting in contact with the local HIV government caseworker, securing a doctor and an apointment with said doctor within a few weeks of ariving, find a pharmacy that has a knowledgeable pharmacist on staff. (Many pharmacists are not worth a tinkers damn.) Any lapse in medications could very well be deadly. We DO NOT give the virus a chance to rebound and develop imunity to the anti retroviral medications.
Some day the meds might fail me. If that happens there will be a slow spiral down. My health will start to deteriorate and eventualy I will be bed ridden and likely in hospice. Just waiting to die so the misery will stop.

I understand that the gist of these stories is that life goes on. But they gloss over the suck leaving the reader with the false impression it is no big deal being HIV+ nowadays. Which is the farthest from the truth.

[Ann Onymous]

Being HIV+ myself I personaly find all these fluff pieces that diminish the impact of HIV to be a disservice.

[snip]

I understand that the gist of these stories is that life goes on. But they gloss over the suck leaving the reader with the false impression it is no big deal being HIV+ nowadays. Which is the farthest from the truth.

If the article had come from a daily paper in the heterosexual community, then I could see that glossing over (as you refer to it) had occurred.  But the Voice is a gay-centered media outlet in the Dallas area...I seriously doubt that their reading demographic needs to be told about the potential ramifications of holding an HIV+ status.  In fact they would likely LOSE readers if they spent time on the negative components of the condition in every story they wrote that deals with HIV or AIDS...