I had some pretty interesting and confusing thoughts this week. Thoughts about HIV and my life. What if I were to contract HIV right now? Right now that I am married and have three children? Or what if I were to find out that one of my children had HIV? Would I be able to deal with it? Or rather how would I deal with it?
I know that I am definitely growing in knowledge because of this class. I am a pretty fair person, but I will admit that when I didn't know much about the disease - it was easy for me to judge a person if I knew they were HIV positive. It was easy for me to Not want to be around them, to even fear being around them to an extent. My way of thinking has completely changed now. I feel now that if I were faced with HIV, I would handle it much differently than before. HIV is something that frightens me. It doesn't frighten me to where I think that I can easily contract it from someone else. What frightens me is what it does to one's body. I've been "surfing" the web and "googling" images of what the different infections of HIV look like. The pictures are horrifying. For our Module 4, we have to write about four diseases. One of the diseases I chose was Herpes (HSV2). In a few of the pictures herpes was compared between HIV positive people and HIV negative people. The sores of the HIV positive people were scary. They looked like craters on their skin. HIV infected people can lose their eyesight and hearing. That alone is terrifying. HIV destroys the body, completely.
That brought me back to thinking about how I would deal with one of my children having HIV. I know I would have to come to terms with it. But I wonder if it would be easier to deal with if one was not so educated about the disease and what it has the potential to do? While this class definitely helps with helping grow in knowledge, but at the same time, it has opened my eyes to the truths about HIV and some of them are hard to swalow.
I must admit that I am gaining a GREATER respect for people who have to deal with HIV, both the people who are infected by it and the people who are part of their lives.
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Yea I feel somewhat similar as well. I feel as if education has made me more aware of HIV and AIDS and how I would deal with someone with the disease. Also, if I had a family member that was HIV positive, now I would deal with the situation a little bit differently. I can help them out more now that I am educated. Education is a great thing especially with HIV and AIDS.
ReplyDeleteHi Cathia. I, too, understand your thoughts. Having the knowledge helps you to make informed decisions, but sometimes this knowledge can make you afraid of the future for someone you know of that is diagnosed with HIV. But in once all is said and done, I would rather be well informed than not. Having children of your own makes you more protective of them and knowing that you may not be able to protect them is a horrible thought as well. I also agreed with your statement about having a greater respect for people who have family and friends or for those individuals who are battling HIV.
ReplyDeleteI agree, before starting this course HIV scared me as well. All I really knew was the portrayal of the disease in movies and television shows. I would have acted the same as you if I had come across someone with the disease; probably ignoring or ostracizing the person completely. The knowledge and experiences i have obtained in the past 5 weeks has completely changed my perspective on the disease. Nice blog!
ReplyDeleteYes, it is very scary of the diseased pictures between that of a HIV+ and HIV- patients! I know what you mean when you say you're afraid of HIV. I don't think I will pick it up off of a toilet seat, I'm afraid of the effects! The worst part about it, is there is no cure. Personally, I usually associate HIV with the word "suffering." It's hard to put that with a picture of one of your children or family members. No one wants to be in suffering or likes to see anyone suffering.
ReplyDeleteI understand your feelings in the first part of your blog. I am a social work major and when asked at the beginning of my major if I would want to work with HIV/AIDS I probably would of said I preferred not to. Now if I was asked I would say yes, I think my previous reason for saying no would be lack of knowledge.
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