Almost there

Well.. we are almost to the end of the semester and although my blog is late - better late than never. Things have been crazy with my children and husband staying sick over the past couple of weeks. But I finally managed to set some time aside to talk about my HIV education experience this week. This week I actually spoke with a friend who had a friend who died from AIDS and she has another friend who is currently HIV positive. It kind of brought the subject to life for me in a different way. This virus creates a disease that leaves lasting impressions on people... real things happen to these people and the people they love ad surround them. She was telling me about her deceased friend and how the family members of these people reacted to the disease and to the person. They embraced the person and didn't even look at the disease as a part of the person who was affected by it. This kind of brought it a different level to me. I knew it was out there and existed, but it was never real to me.

Children and HIV

This week I was still thinking about QOTW #9 and wondering how many children get infected in the United States and how. I was actually surprised that the numbers were not higher. In 2000, the number of new infections in children under 13 was just over 100 (HIVinfosource.org, 2009). In June 2001, the number of new infections in children between the ages of 13-19 was approximately 4,219 (HIVinfosource.org, 2009). In children under 13, the transmission usually occurs through birth or breastfeeding. Very few infections in the United States are due to blood transfusions, because the blood in the US is screened. Other countries cannot afford to screen their blood, so transfusion infections are still prominent in those countries. In children between 13-19, most of the infections are due to sexual intercourse and some to IV drug use. (HIVinfosource.org, 2009).
The QOTW this week was about different measures that other countries are trying to take against people with HIV. It made me think about HIV education. I think that the spread of HIV could be decreased if the people were more educated. I think people are scared of what they don't know.
I will be attending the Men's panel next Wednesday and am excited about it. I look forward to hearing about their experiences and things they go through.

http://www.hivinfosource.org/hivis/hivbasics/children/index.html

What a week!

Wow! It seems like as the weeks go on in this semester, the busier and busier I seem to get. This week we are doing our final simulation. We have to pretend that we have HIV and follow a medication regime throughout the whole week. We are in Day 4 right now and I do not know how someone with HIV actually follows their daily medication intake. I work 3rd shift at the hospital and try to sleep during the day between caring for three children. I've missed several doses of my meds and feel a bit overwhelmed. My schedule does not work with this schedule, but I have to make it all work!
My topic of interest is how mothers deal with children who are HIV positive. It happens that our QOTW last week (the one about your child biting someone) was actually a true incident. It happened to our professor's child. This brings it more home to me that someone "close" to me has experienced something like this. I respect Teach for handling it the way she did. I answered the QOTW with an opposite reaction, but one really never knows what they will do when placed in a tough situation where their child can be potentially at trisk for humiliation and ridicule.