|
Positive about HIV
30/11/2007 19:23 - (SA)
Verashni Pillay
Cape Town - It was hot in the church hall in Gugulethu on that Sunday in 2006. Nontuthzelo Mbewana remembers the slight breeze that ruffled her black and yellow top as she suddenly found herself at the front of the hall, looking at a sea of smiling faces.
Her heart pounded but somehow she had to say it. "My name is Nontuthzelo and I am HIV-positive."
Leaning on the crutches that had become necessary after years of denial, Nontuthzelo closed her eyes and breathed deeply.
It had been a long journey since her rape as a 13-year-old. But she was alive - and she was ready to talk about it.
The 27-year-old clearly remembers the day she contracted HIV/Aids when she was raped by a man she trusted.
Fatherless and yearning
Thirteen, fatherless and longing for the affection she saw between her best friend and her father, Tutu (as her friends call her) yearned for the same bond.
The day he offered her a lift to school, she was ecstatic.
"I thought: Wow, at last I'm getting close with her dad, maybe he is going to be my dad also."
He began giving her lunch money and Tutu proudly told her friends: "There's my dad".
One day he offered to fetch her from school. Bounding out of the school gates in her grey skirt and white shirt, she got into the man's car without question.
But they didn't go to her home in Nyanga. He took her into a wooded area out of town, pushed a gun to her face and raped her.
"I was so scared, I was shaking," said Tutu. "I wanted to scream but I saw no use because I was in the middle of a forest."
She felt utterly betrayed. In one moment her "dad" had stripped the vulnerable teen of her dignity, virginity and, ultimately, her life. She couldn't bear to face the classmates she'd once boasted to about her "father".
"I told myself that I was never going to tell anyone," she said.
Increasingly distracted
 But Tutu, a bright student, became increasingly distracted at school as the abuse went on. Her mother and teachers found out and put a stop to it, but the damage was done. Tutu was shattered and dropped out.
Four years later, she pulled herself together and started working as a waitress. Soon she met John. She'd never been in a relationship before but he won her over. They hadn't slept together when he proposed marriage. But he had one proviso: they both had to get tested for HIV.
When doctors at Groote Schuur Hospital told her she was HIV-positive, 18-year-old Tutu wanted to run away. It was 1998 and she'd only heard horror stories about the disease.
She fled to Johannesburg, leaving John, her mother and everything she knew.
But the disease could not be so easily shaken.
The next six years were a battle with herself, the disease, and her failing health.
In 2000 she returned home to confront the disease, but her CD4 (immune cell) count had dropped too low for her to start taking antiretroviral medication (ARVs).
Tutu was treated for thrush, tuberculosis, and meningitis at various hospitals. After an exhausting 3 years her CD4 count had climbed high enough for her to start ARV treatment.
But it wasn't the instant cure she expected. Barely a month into her treatment, she was coughing and sick with yet another bout of TB and meningitis.
Rebellion and denial
She rebelled. "I said: 'I'm tired of this, I was taking the ARVs, I thought I was getting better and everything was going well."
"Sick and tired" of being in and out of hospitals, Tutu could now also no longer walk as irreparable damage had been done to her legs. "I didn't feel very well, I couldn't breathe".
She stopped taking her ARVs for a year, despite her doctors' and mother's desperate pleas. "I'm not going to take all of these medication because it is useless," she remembers saying at the time.
Her weight dwindled to 25kg and her physical deterioration was matched by a downward spiral into despair.
Early in 2005 hope re-entered her life in the form of a stranger named Nandipha.
Being wheeled into GF Jooste Hospital on the Cape Flats by her mother for a blood test, Tutu was screaming blue murder. "I want to go home!" she yelled at her mother, the doctors - anybody who would listen. She cried out in pain and frustration as blood was drawn for the umpteenth time.
Her mother left her for a brief moment in a queue for medication to go to the bathroom. Suddenly Tutu felt her chair being swivelled around. She found herself face-to-face with a beautiful woman, who looked at her with compassion.
"I was just like you," she said. Nandipha began telling Tutu her story: how she too had contracted Aids in an horrific way and how she lived in denial for years. But as she stood before Tutu, she was the picture of health.
"She said to me that she was HIV-positive, but she didn't look like she was HIV-positive at all. She was so beautiful and she was working.
'Maybe I could become like this'
"When I saw her I thought maybe I could become like this and get back to myself."
With hope came perseverance. Tutu began taking her ARVs again. "I took them at the right time each and every morning and afternoon, and I went to every appointment at the hospital."
Within a few months, the change was astounding. "By the beginning of 2006 I was a different person," she recalled.
Remembering a neighbour's invitation to attend her church, Tutu found herself on that Sunday morning in Khanyisa Church surrounded by people who were joyful. She met other people living with HIV/Aids who were happier than anyone she'd ever met.
I'm not alone, she remembers realising.
"All this time I thought it was my disease only. Although I had heard people talking about it on TV and radio I thought it was only happening to me."
Tutu began attending a support group ran by the community outreach arm of the church Izandla Zethemba, or Hands of Hope.
'Everyone was laughing'
"When I came to the support group I thought I'd be hearing sad stories and people talking about how sick they are.
"But it wasn't like that. They were so positive and open about it, and everyone was laughing."
Tutu has since become a volunteer at Izandla Zethemba, determined to stop others from making the same mistakes she did.
"I have a feeling that out there are people who are in denial just like I was and wait too long to take their ARVs."
While Tutu shuffles along with the help of crutches, when it comes to ideas she soars. She's in the process of starting a business doing mosaic work. She proudly displays photos of her work.
"There's nothing more that I could ask the Lord for than where I am," she said, "I am just thankful that I got my life back."
- News24
|
News
HIV/Aids Special Report
