Hi. My name is Cathia Nieves and I am a full time 3rd year student at UCF this semester. I am a Nursing major and am awaiting acceptance into the RN program. I am a proud mother of three wonderful children ages 7, 6, and 2. I've been married for seven years and feel blessed to be able to pursue my goals and dreams after being out of school for such a long time. I am first time blogger, so please excuse me as I get used to the whole blogging thing.
I wanted to take the HIV class because I am genuinely interested in the virus and how it works. I took Microbiology a couple semesters ago and it forever changed my outlook on diseases and what causes them. I was especially interested in the HIV virus, but the class did not go into much detail about it (as we had numerous bacteria and viruses to study).
I have never known anyone infected with HIV, so I do not have any personal experience with the virus. Our first assignment in this class was to do a simulation to see what it would be like to be a patient with HIV/AIDS. This simulation - which only showed one possible side effect of HIV - opened my eyes to what people with HIV must suffer on a daily basis. We take things for granted such as eating a cracker and washing it down with water. People with HIV/AIDS who develop Thrush have a hard time performing such a simple task.
What interests me most about HIV is how mothers deal with HIV (having children with it and having children without it). As we get deeper into the course, I hope to eduacte myself as to how they deal with it and all the complications that come with it. I would love to meet someone who falls into this category and build a relationship with this person. I hope to have that opportunity.
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Hi Cathia. I think your interest in how mothers deal with their HIV children is great. I, too, would like to learn more in this subject area. I am looking forward to sharing information on this subject and if you come across any information on HIV/AIDS and research, I would appreciate your sharing it with me.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to my world, Cathia and Morgan. I am a mother that deals with HIV on a daily basis. I teach it and I live with a daughter who was infected at birth. My other daughter tested positive at birth but at age two was negative. So I have one of each. I'll see if I can get another pen pal, Betty, to share her experiences with you. She also has two children, adopted, who are HIV positive.
ReplyDeleteI would suggest googling the subject to see what you find out. You can then share that information here on your blog. I look forward to reading your blogs.
Hello Cathia. I already find your blog to be very interesting. When I think of HIV patients, I usually picture individual people. It has never crossed my mind as to what HIV positive mothers deal with on a day-to-day basis. And the simulation was an eye-opener. I can't imagine possibly suffering from those side effects AND trying to raise children. Good Luck on your blogs!
ReplyDeleteI hope you really learned a lot in this class and got a chance to learn about mothering a child with HIV as well as many other aspects of the disease. You mentioned the Thrush simulation assignment, I hope you did learned a lot from the M&M simulation assignment as well :)
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